Simplifying

As if on cue, the day I wrote to you that Simplicity is sophistication, a client reached out for advice on reducing complexity in their user permissioning model. Looking at it together, we saw pretty quickly that they could easily eliminate 14 user roles and over 22,000 inactive users from their system.

That’s over 3100 permission assignments they can now stop thinking about. And instead of managing over 22K users, they’ll have 12.

They’ve got that in the schedule for this week, and they're now on their way to a permissioning system that they can actually understand and manage.

So it’s worth asking:

What can you do to avoid excess complexity in your new projects? Or to streamline your existing systems so you can actually understand what's going on?

Whether da Vinci said it or not, simplicity really is the ultimate sophistication.

All the best,
A.

Tools vs. strategy

Imagine someone who's trying to get in shape, so they buy a new treadmill. But that doesn't do it, so they buy a Bowflex. But that’s not doing it, so they buy something else.

One gadget after another, and they don't feel any more fit than they did at the beginning.

Turns out, they weren't actually using any of that stuff more than once or twice a month.

Here’s the thing:

It's not always a question of whether you've got the right tools. Often it's a question of whether you have the right strategy, and whether you're implementing it consistently.

All the best,
A.

P.S. Hat-tip to list member Andrew A., who mentioned this analogy in a recent conversation. Thanks Andrew!

Segmentation?

Quick question for you:

How much are you making use of segmentation in reaching out to your people?

I get the feeling this is an opportunity that a lot of organizations are overlooking, so I'm curious how you might be making use of it.

If you could, please shoot me a quick reply with a short answer.

And, if you have questions about segmentation, please ask in a reply email, and I may be able to dig into this topic a little further on the list.

All the best,
A.

5 types of costs for your CRM project

When you’re considering a significant improvement to your CRM system, you may have more costs to consider than just the fee you’d pay to make it happen.

Here are five that I have encountered in my years as a consultant:

1. Time cost

The time that you and your employees will have to devote to managing and participating in the project.

For example: You believe that a highly customized member engagement workflow will get you a 30% increase in member acquisition and retention, but you find that the project requires your membership director and their staff to spend 2 days per week participating in the design process.

2. Technical switching cost

The technical effort of moving from one system to another, or to modify related systems to support the changes.

For example: You know that moving from an expensive SAAS CRM subscription to an open-source CRM could save you tens of thousands of dollars every year, but you find that making the switch will require you to set up or alter a number of related online services, such as outbound email providers, payment processors, and e-commerce integrations.

3. Human switching cost

The effort and mental stress of changing your staff’s (and possibly your members’) way of using the system.

For example: You want to design and implement more robust security and permissioning policies to accommodate the growing complexity of your organization, but you find that doing so will require significant re-training of staff, more time for member support to handle questions about the changes, and possibly dealing with frustrated staff members who can’t do things the way they used to.

4. Opportunity cost

The cost of doing one thing and leaving another for later. What other projects are you delaying or giving up in order to take on this new improvement? What other needs that you’re aware of are you assigning a lower priority than the project you’re undertaking?

For example: Instead of spending time and money on moving away from your expensive SAAS CRM provider, you could spend those resources on other aspects of your organizational mission. You have to choose something, and it’s important to acknowledge that you’re prioritizing one thing over another, and to understand why you’re making that decision.

5. Sunk cost

The time, money, and organizational good will that you’ve already spent on a failed solution to your problem. The value of that investment can create a strong desire to “stick it out” so your prior investment doesn’t feel “wasted”.

This is the classic “sunk cost fallacy”, and it should be regarded as a fallacy. But it’s a very human response that often creeps in anyway.

For example: The Development Director who’s already convinced their board to approve hiring an offshore team to build a custom donation management system – promised for delivery in 6 months, 2 years ago – may not find it easy to chuck that out and start over with someone new.

Here’s the thing:

Improving your systems is going to take some effort and expense, and it’s not always about the fee. As you’re planning to make these improvements happen, the more explicit you can be about naming the other costs, the more easily you can prioritize and execute to reach your goals.

(Speaking as a strategic consultant and CRM implementer myself, I also know that the more you can share about these other costs early on in the process, the more your consultant will be able to help you address them and still get a win for your organization.)

All the best,
A.

What are the costs?

When you’re looking to make improvements to your CRM systems, you’ll want to think about the actual business value you’ll get from those improvements, and you’ll want to think about what it will cost you.

We can assume you won’t undertake the project if the expected value is not greater than the expected cost.

But be aware — the “costs” here are not only the fees you’ll need to spend if you hire someone to help you.

It’s all of the time, effort, expense, and mental stress that go along with making changes. Things like:

• Time cost

• Technical switching cost

• Human switching cost

• Opportunity cost

• Sunk cost (a classic “fallacy”, but still a real consideration)

If you’ve considered all those, and still think the improvements are worth undertaking, plow ahead. But if you haven’t, you might want to give them some thought first.

All the best,
A.

Simplicity is sophistication

You can build really complex workflows, reports, segmentation, and tracking in your open-source CRM.

The tools are there. It's awesome. It's a ton of fun.

But are you going to use them? Once you’ve built them, will you be able to recall in your own mind at any given moment how they work and what they mean?

If you're not really going to make use of them, where’s the value in building them at all?

Here’s the thing:

A simple system that you know well, understand fully, and use frequently will generally have more business value than a complex system that you rarely (or never) use.

Keep it simple, if you can.

And when you decide to go for something more complex, make sure you know why.

All the best,
A.

P.S. The aphorism “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” is often attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, but that’s probably not quite right.

Ice bucket challenge

Long-term vision, perseverance, and dedication to a mission — those count for a lot.

Remember the ALS ice bucket challenge?

Even if you do, you probably haven’t thought about it in a long time.

But the ALS Association has been thinking about it.

Just recently the FDA approved the first ALS treatment funded by the ice bucket challenge. Over 8 years since the grass-roots viral awareness campaign netted it millions of dollars in donations.

Here's the thing:

You may not be lucky enough to have a global viral sensation sending millions of dollars your way.

But you do have a mission, and you have people who believe in it.

Perseverance and smart long-term planning can help you get there together.

All the best,
A.

Are duplicates limiting your growth?

A few duplicate contacts here and there probably won't hurt you, and it can be counterproductive to obsess over squeezing out every single duplicate.

But if 10 or 20 percent of your contacts are duplicates, each with their own records of event participation, membership, and payments, you're going to run into real problems as you try to manage and report on their engagement with your mission.

And good segmentation — in order to get them to the next level of engagement — won't be very easy either.

Deduping is not always fun. But it's an important part of good data hygiene, and it's essential for making your CRM effective in furthering your mission.

All the best,
A.

Flossing your data

Most people don't get very excited about flossing daily. But we do it because we know the value adds up over time. And the cost of skipping that simple routine is not pleasant.

Cleaning out duplicate contacts is something like that.

It's not always fun, but it's important, and it gets easier when you make it a routine practice.

All the best,
A.

When free software isn’t free

Yes, CiviCRM is free, as are Drupal and WordPress. Free to use, and free to modify as you need.

But as with everything, it's worth taking a moment to count the total cost of ownership, compare that to the actual value you're getting, and make sure it's worth it. And then, to prepare for healthy system maintenance by budgeting appropriately.

Ownership costs of for open-source software could include:

• Security maintenance

• Hosting fees

• Bug fixes

• Staff training

• Member support

And that's just to work with it out-of-the-box. If you want to customize it, or use it in creative ways that are unique to your organization, you'll naturally have some custom development cost as well.

Here’s the thing:

Most organizations who rely on open-source software are very happy with it. I love it and my clients love it.

If you’re making sure to count the cost of ownership, budgeting for good maintenance, and making smart value comparisons, then you’re in a good spot. If not, slow down a moment and consider what you’re trying to achieve.

All the best,
A.

Building trust

When you’re starting off with a new service provider – or looking to select one – how do you know if you can really trust them to deliver the goods?

Fortunately, there’s something pretty simple that you can start measuring from your first interactions:

Do they actually do what they say they will do?

• If they said they would get back to you by Tuesday, then did they?

• Are they on time for meetings?

• Did they send that additional information that they promised?

Watch for such things from the beginning, and then let that inform the trust you’re willing to place in them.

There’s no good reason to bet the farm on someone who may not have the integrity to handle the job. As with everything, consider what you’re hoping to achieve, and start looking for early indicators as soon as possible in the process.

One more thing:

If they do well early on, but the relationship is still too new for you to trust them with a massive project, it’s okay to ask if they’ll start out on something small. How small? As small as necessary to fit within your trust and comfort level, however you measure that for yourself.

All the best,
A.

One question

The shift to value-driven thinking from the old feature-driven thinking can be a hard one. It can take some time.

But one thing you can start now is simply to ask yourself a question anytime you get a new idea for a feature:

What's the actual business value that I will get from this improvement?

The answer should have a number and a unit. It could be hours of staff time saved, or a percentage of membership sign-ups increased, or even a percentage of how much easier your life would be.

You don't have to change everything at once, but just asking yourself to put a number on things can give a whole new perspective to your work.

All the best,
A.

Did you figure it out yet?

Hey, you know that thing you were wondering about? Did you look it up in the docs —any luck? You have somebody you can ask about it?

Don't let it linger just because you don't know who to ask. If you were wondering about it, there’s probably a good reason to find out.

All the best,
A.

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.