Where’s your blueprint?

It's hard to create something really great without having a good plan first.

When I first moved to my small North Texas town, I looked at a lot of houses to find just the right one.

And I was surprised by the number of homes—several of them—that had started out as simple one-bedroom bungalows, but had eventually sprawled into five-bedroom monstrosities with four bathrooms, three living rooms, five exterior doors, and no hallways.

Oh look, if you walk through this bedroom directly into the other bedroom you can get to the back door.

Yes, a large home with ample accommodation sounds nice. But having a bedroom that doubles as a hallway, not so much.

What these homes had in common was that they were not built on a solid plan—not in their current form., anyway.

And when the many successive additions were made, very little long-term planning had been done to consider how it would all fit together.

Here's the thing:

When you start off with your open-source CRM, it's okay to start small. But it's important to do the right planning from the beginning, and then do it again when you make significant additions, to make sure it all works together nicely.

Keep expanding, it's okay. But do so with a clear plan that aims at clear goals.

All the best,
A.

When your CRM is a community effort

Every few weeks or so, there's a new update released for CiviCRM, WordPress, or Drupal.

These updates are made available at no cost. That's one of the great things about open-source software.

But here's another great thing:

All of the improvements in each new release come almost entirely from the minds and efforts of system owners like yourself.

There's no big corporation somewhere with a campus full of developers thinking up new ideas inside their giant echo chamber.

If you spot an improvement that's needed in one of your open source tools — a bug fix, a new feature, improvements to documentation, whatever — you can contribute that idea to the project and it could very well be there in the next release.

(And if you think it's worth it to you, you could also contribute or sponsor the actual work that's needed to make that improvement happen.)

This is the beauty of open source tools: Other people are improving your software at no cost to you, and now and then you have a chance to step in and make improvements too.

All the best,
A.

Cutting costs vs cutting corners

Yesterday I talked about cutting corners. You don't want to do that.

But what about cutting costs? What's the difference?

Every year when my home and auto insurance comes up for renewal, I ask my agent if he can find me a better deal. That's cutting costs.

Cutting corners would be deciding to go without insurance for a while to save a few bucks.

If I really can't afford the insurance on one of my cars, the only prudent choice is to stop driving it.

Here's the thing:

For any system that you're running, especially open-source software, which you actually own, somebody on your team needs to ensure that system is being taken care of properly, whether that’s a staff member or an outside consultant.

If you do that — even if it means waiting to implement some great new feature — you can be confident that the systems you are running will be reliable for the long haul.

All the best,
A.

Replacement cost

One way to think about value is in terms of replacement cost.

If you lost your CRM today, how would that impact your organization? What would it take to replace it with something else?

Yesterday I heard from an organization who may be facing this question. After years of cutting corners on maintenance, they have a CRM that is broken, unreliable, and un-upgradable without significant repair. And they may not have the budget for repair.

Budget or no, I expect they'll find a way through this. But not without significant expense in human resources and mental stress.

If you've got systems that serve a critical role in your organization's mission, think about the cost/benefit equation of maintaining them properly. It's probably pretty good.

All the best,
A.

Asking for directions

Google maps is pretty good, but sometimes it'll steer you wrong.

This weekend a friend of mine was going to see a play at the local high school, so she pulled out her phone and got directions.

The directions were great. That is, they would have been if she had wanted to go to the old high school, which has been the local middle school for the last two years.

Fortunately she was smart enough to ask a passerby where the new high school really was. She made it there before the curtain opened and enjoyed the show about as much as anybody can enjoy a high school play.

Here's the thing:

The typical authoritative sources — online documentation, tutorials, and the rest — are usually great. But when they're not, it can help a lot to ask directions from someone who knows the territory.

All the best,
A.

Bike sheds

They say that if a committee were tasked with the creation of a nuclear power plant, very few committee members would presume to question the design plans for the reactor itself.

But if the plant designs include a shed where employees can park their bikes, every committee member will have a strong opinions on what color it should be.

... and let the arguments begin.

It's really a good thing in the human character. We want to leave our mark, make our contribution, feel that we’re doing our part. Even over fairly small details.

But, if it delays the project, you've got trouble.

Here's the thing:

Getting bogged down in insignificant detail generates delays, mental stress, and ill will — all of which are unnecessary costs.

If you've got a project in the works, get it done. Focus on the big, important pieces that you know you'll need.

For the rest, make a reasonable choice and move on.

You can always repaint that bike shed.

All the best,
A.

The value you give

Besides thinking seriously about the value of your systems to your organization, it's good to think about the value you're providing to your members.

Do your emails enrich their life? How, and how much?

Do your programs advance their career? How do you know?

These things can be measured. Even the intangibles, like a sense of belonging or pride in making the world a better place.

Quantifying and reporting on the value you give will have a measurable impact on your ability to continue serving your people and increasing your effectiveness as an organization.

What steps are you taking to identify this value, to measure it, and to remind people of it?

All the best,
A.

4 areas of in-house expertise

You can (and probably should) outsource things like security updates and other maintenance tasks.

But there are 4 things you should really consider dividing among your existing staff or new hires. I’ll list these in order from most likely to least:

1. Knowledge of the data: Somebody in your organization (or in each department) needs to be the designated person who is most familiar with the CRM data in your system. You're probably already doing this, because that data is the reason you're keeping a CRM in the first place.

2. Features and configuration: Someone in your organization needs to master the features and configuration options of your CRM, and know how your your system is set up. You (or one of your staff) can develop this familiarity by being the one who's responsible for configurations, installing extensions, and deciding which features to use and how.

3. Custom development: Smaller organizations may not be able to justify keeping a developer in-house. But for larger organizations the value can be significant. This person is responsible for any custom code: creating it, maintaining it, and improving it as needed. If you're relying heavily on custom software code, somebody in your organization should at least have a clue of how it works.

4. Visual design: Making your public-facing interfaces look beautiful goes a long way toward increasing your brand value and member experience. Whoever is handling your website design should be able to take this on, whether that's your own staff or an outsourced firm.

Here's the thing:

You probably can't do all this overnight. But dividing the tasks in this way can help you chart a course to get there.

All the best,
A.

Continual improvement

CiviCRM just released a new update: version 5.57.2.

I'm not writing this to say you should upgrade. You probably don't need to.

But it's a good chance to point out two great things:

1. The upgrade is out there, and it may address a problem you already know about. If it does, upgrading is a simple way to fix that problem. (You can see the release notes here if you’d like to see what it covers.)

2. Your open source tools are being supported by a vibrant and active community of contributors who are constantly handing out free fixes for your benefit.

Continual improvement is a wonderful thing. Isn't it nice when you, your organization, and your members can benefit from it?

All the best,
A.

Mowing the lawn

Handling your day-to-day CRM operations in-house is an important step in gaining mastery and ownership of your systems.

But it doesn't mean you have to handle everything in-house.

There are plenty of important but routine maintenance tasks that have little bearing on your mastery of your systems:

• Website hosting,

• Security updates,

• Outbound email routing,

• Uptime monitoring,

• and more.

These are all standard operations that are easily provided at a predictable cost through outside services. And building your own reliable solution for those things is probably going to take more time and effort than it's worth.

Compare it to managing your office space. For systems that are unique to your way of operating, you get a lot of value by managing them in-house.

But it's often smart to hire an outside service for things like housekeeping, window washing, and maintenance of your parking lot and landscaping.

Here's the thing:

Mastery of your systems does require the building of long-term institutional knowledge. But it doesn't mean you have to mow the lawn yourself.

All the best,
A.

“patchwork of tools”

One of the main roadblocks to members better connecting with their association is the patchwork of tools members are asked to use ... Nearly 40 percent of survey respondents cited “too many different tools” and “ease of navigation” as their chief frustrations with their association’s technology.

That's a finding from a recent global survey of nearly 2,000 professional association members. (ASAE: Study: Membership Tech Is Leaving Engagement Gaps)

Frustrations like this might account for the roughly 60% of “early career” association members who said they were not likely to renew their membership.

Are you sending your members to several different websites for things that really could be handled in your primary CRM?

Things like event registration, membership sign up and renewal, content subscriptions?

If you are, think about how this is affecting your members’ experience with your organization, and their willingness to renew their membership next year.

Chances are you can get a significant increase in membership retention by streamlining these experiences for them.

All the best,
A.

Short and sweet?

Is it better to have a long and detailed explanation at the top of your sign up forms?

Or would it be better to assume people know why they're there and keep the forms as short and simple as possible?

If you're not sure, you could just guess and hope.

Or you could test, measure, and find out.

What to do?

Hint: Guessing and hoping is not a plan. If you don't have enough information to make a decision, it's kind of hard to control the outcomes.

All the best,
A.

Strategy vs maintenance

When you care about outcomes, it makes a lot of sense to distinguish between day-to-day maintenance and strategic planning.

Consider physical health, as an important outcome of nutrition.

If I wanted to, I could eat out for every meal, every day. It's expensive, but it's fun, and it's convenient.

Problem is, eating out gives me almost no control, nor knowledge, of the nutritional considerations.

If I care about my health and nutrition, making my meals in-house provides a ton of value.

On the other hand, if I'm trying to make significant changes to my nutritional intake, I can get a lot of value by consulting with an expert, a nutritional advisor or coach who can help me make a good plan.

This way, I get valuable guidance at a strategic level, and then I go in-house with the day-to-day so I can control the outcomes.

Here's the thing:

Bringing in an outside advisor is a great idea for strategic planning on big changes. But for day to day maintenance and support, keeping it in house is usually the long-term winning option.

All the best,
A.

Skepticism is a virtue (Bug Monday)

You've probably got someone on your team actively monitoring for errors on your CRM system (and if you don't, we really should talk).

Still, sometimes you'll get a report from a user who's running into a problem.

Maybe they can't submit a payment. Maybe they're seeing something unexpected.

What to do?

A frustrated donor or member is a real problem. It's important to take them at their word.

But you can lose a lot of time and effort trying to solve this problem without a careful approach.

Here's where I like to remind people:

A little skepticism can be a virtue.

After all, how do you know what's causing this user's problem?

• Is it a bug in your software?

• Is it a misconfiguration somewhere?

• Is the user missing an important step?

To address it properly, the skeptical mind assumes that there nothing to fix, until you (or someone on your team) can see it happening.

Without seeing it happen, you really have no idea if:

• The problem exists,

• For whom it exists and under what circumstances, or

• What the nature of it really is.

You can guess and assume, but that wastes a lot of time.

Here’s the thing:

Someone on your team needs to replicate the bug. Otherwise, you don’t have a bug; you have a rumor.

Once you can see it happening you get a few advantages:

1. The cause of the problem may be obvious to you, so you can fix it right away.

2. If not, you now have a set of steps that you can repeat in slightly different scenarios. This is critical for deeper debugging.

3. Most importantly, you have a way to verify that any corrective action you take has actually solved the problem. Because you’ll be able to repeat those steps without issue.

Sometimes figuring out how to replicate the problem is 99% of fixing it.

But this only happens if you start with a little bit of healthy skepticism.

All the best,
A.

P.S. This email is part of a series, “Bug Monday”. Every Monday I’ll cover important concepts in dealing with real or imagined bugs in your CRM system. You can see previous emails in this series here.)

Managing the unpredictable

You're probably offering your members and donors some sort of recurring auto-pay option. (And if you're not, we really should talk.)

Why do you do that?

Because people forget. Even the things they want to do.

And they don't want to think about it every month or every year.

Can you even imagine a system of membership payments that are due in random amounts at random times throughout the year? Who in their right mind would want that?

But as the owner of business software systems, you're in a position to keep up with tasks that do come up unpredictably and without warning.

Security updates, user support requests, system bugs and errors, and more.

Wouldn't it be nice if there were a way to put yourself on auto-renewal for such tasks — or at least to automate them somehow — so you never had to think about them, and you could be sure they were getting done right?

Actually you can.

You just have to decide what those tasks are, and find a way to automate them.

For security updates and backup recovery, there are subscriptions available. (Yes I offer such services but that's not the point this email.)

For other tasks, you may need to think a little more carefully.

But here's the thing:

Mental stress is a cost. And you can reduce it by putting systems in place to even out the unpredictable.

All the best,
A.

Deciding what to measure

We talk a lot about measuring, but how do you know what you want to measure?

• Membership renewal rates month over month?

• Email open rates from one mailing to another?

• Email bounce rates month to month?

• Relationships between member interaction and membership renewal?

• Relationship between the length of the registration form and the form completion rate?

If you haven't made a practice of measurement and analysis, it can be hard to know where to start.

But if you think about it for a moment, you probably have some idea.

At some level, you know what you want to achieve, and you have some theory about how to achieve it.

That, if nothing else, is the place to start measuring.

As you get a little more familiar with the process, you'll also be building up a valuable store of information that will help you refine your measurements towards more specific, attainable, and valuable goals.

In the words of the immortal, er, somebody (Benjamin Franklin? Lady Gaga?):

You don't have to get it right; you just have to get it started.

All the best,
A.

Creating a baseline

Imagine that you've been getting user complaints about your CRM.

Maybe they're getting error messages. Maybe they're confused about what their membership gets them. Maybe they're frustrated by the difficulty of updating their own contact information.

Now imagine that you decide to improve the situation. It’s time to take some action.

But you know that a good goal is not just “getting better." It's a number on a metric that you can aim for.

In this case, you could aim to “reduce user complaints by 15%.”

So the next question is: Reduce them compared to what?

To know if you're improving, you'll need to start with a baseline, a number that indicates your current performance on this metric.

If you've been tracking user complaints in a systematic way, then you probably have what you need to figure out your current baseline. A little time spent in analyzing that data, and you’ve got it.

But if you can't figure out your current baseline, then you can't make a goal about reducing user complaints.

Instead you need a goal like: Create a system to measure the frequency of user complaints.

Here’s the thing:

A goal has a measurable outcome. If your current number of ways to measure is zero, then an important goal is moving it from zero to one.

All the best,
A.

If you're not measuring, you're not improving.

As you think about ways to improve your organization, and your systems, consider this:

How will you know if you've actually improved?

If you're not measuring the starting point and the outcomes, can you really say that you've improved anything?

If you're not measuring, you're not improving. (Or at least, you can’t know if you’re improving.)

What would you like to improve? And how can you find ways to measure that improvement?

All the best,
A.

“Get better” is not a goal

New Year's resolutions are tricky. We’re 18 days into the new year, and a lot of people have already given up on theirs.

For a many of them, the reason is that they haven't set actual goals.

Exercise more. Eat healthier. Lose weight. Save more money.

What do these have in common?

They all sound nice. And none of them are goals.

Aspirations, yes. But goals, no.

Here's the thing:

A goal aims for a measurable outcome.

Exercise more: Well, how much more? And, by the way, why? What's the actual outcome of this aspiration?

If you want to set goals for your organization, first think about the business value you're trying to achieve.

And then pick a measurable indicator that will get you closer to that outcome.

That’s a real goal: one you can work toward and know when you've achieved it.

All the best,
A.

The cost of complexity

Like everything else, system complexity comes with significant trade-offs.

Just think about the mental overhead that's required when you decide to implement complex policies.

For example:

• Having 27 user roles in your system could be an administrator's nightmare.

• Having 18 different types of membership, each with six different variations in pricing, expiration date, term, and access to a different set of features and content, brings a lot of challenges when it's time to get everything straight.

The more complex these policies are, the more careful you have to be in implementing them. And when someone has a question about why the system behaves as it does, you've got a real task on your hands to figure it all out and explain it.

Even if the system is working right, the fact that you can't hold all the rules in your head at one time increases the mental stress of maintaining the system.

And mental stress is a cost.

Managing complex systems with confidence requires more systems to simplify that management. Good documentation. Automated testing. Staff training. Specialized interfaces.

Here's the thing:

If all of this helps you achieve a measurable business outcome, and the value of that outcome is great enough, then you're all set. Because you can afford to create those management systems.

But if the measurable business value is not there, why would you even bother?

Keep it simple, and sleep better at night.

All the best,
A.