Busy?

Do you feel busy in your work?

Productivity is good. But remember there's no real value in being busy.

The real question is, are you focused on — and actually achieving — goals that matter?

All the best,
A.

"If you don't know what to measure, measure anyway.”

Here's another gem from Douglas Hubbard's How to Measure Anything:

If you don't know what to measure, measure anyway. You'll learn what to measure.

- David moore, 1998 president of the American Statistical Association

Knowing what to measure can be hard, when you don't have much quantified information.

But measuring itself — as a way to remove uncertainty — is critical.

If all you have is a gut feeling, wouldn't it be valuable to have some hard numbers — any at all — on the matter?

That will either let you confirm or refute your gut feeling, or it will point you to things you could measure to get that insight.

There are many things you don't know. But you can't let that stop you in your tracks.

All the best,
A.

Problem solving as a learnable skill

Here's a little story from my "smart client decisions" honor roll:

This client is making great use of CiviCRM and his organization’s CMS on a regular basis. He's not a software developer, but he does make sure he's familiar with the features that are available to him through the CRM, the CMS, and the community provided extensions, of which he uses many.

He doesn't only reach out to me for emergencies. He'll often check in with me early in the process of planning a new project, to be sure he's on the right track with a good strategy.

But yesterday he reached out with an urgent task.

The problem:

In the midst of a large and important event registration campaign, many registrants — but not all — were getting a “white screen” fatal error.

The credit card payments went through, but they never saw a completion message. Just a white page that said, in effect, "Something went wrong. Please try again."

So they would try again, getting the same message each time.

Meanwhile, their credit card was being charged on each attempt. And they'd still not have confidence that they were registered.

So organization staff were getting dozens of requests for help, and complaints about multiple charges, and an ongoing uncertainty about who's actually registered.

Getting it fixed:

My client did a great job of trying to debug this himself, carefully reproducing the bad behavior with a known set of steps. But as well versed and competent as he is, hes still could not find the source of the problem.

So he reached out to me with an urgent request. He described the problem clearly, and told me how to reproduce it. He told me the solutions he had tried. He told me this was an urgent matter, and explained the business impact.

I took it from there.

I cloned the site offline for in-depth debugging. I discovered that the bad behavior was caused by a bug in a particular CMS extension. I patched the bug on his live site, and tested to be sure it was fixed. I also reported the bug for the extension author, sharing my fix. And I let my client know the problem was resolved.

They're now back up and running, with confidence that people are actually able to register without error.

Lessons:

Why is this on the honor roll? Because my client did several things right:

• As a general practice, he keeps abreast of what's generally possible and what's not.

• He's hands-on managing the site himself, and therefore well aware of how the side is configured and what extensions it relies on.

• He took steps to debug the problem himself first. This way if he fixes it, he retains the knowledge of the solution and lets it inform his configuration work going forward.

• He was methodical in reproducing the bad behavior, and in documenting the steps to do so. This gives him a clear indication of where the problem may lie, as well as a test case he can use to verify the effects of any corrective action.

• He noted the business impact of the problem. This allows him to assess both the urgency and the business value of getting a solution.

• He shared all this with me very clearly so that I could take action without ambiguity.

• Most of all, because of all of these things, he was able to make an informed decision about the cost/benefit calculation to determine whether it was worth pulling in an outside expert.

Overall, this reads like an absolute winner to me.

Here's the thing:

Naturally we all hope that nothing ever goes wrong. Naturally we look for software systems that are well designed and robust.

But no matter what system you're using, surprises will happen.

Dealing with them effectively is a matter of diligence, careful analysis, and smart business driven cost/benefit calculations.

These are all learnable skills. Practice, coaching, and care will move you in the right direction.

All the best,
A.

My response to "Should I spend X hours on this?"

Yesterday, a client wrote me with this question. She discovered a bug in a CiviCRM extension, and the extension author has given her an hourly estimate of “5-6 hours” to fix it.

So she asked me:

I’m not sure if we want to spend this many hours on this. What are your thoughts?

Here’s my response, edited lightly for a more general audience:

Hello [dear client],

It's a good question — a great question, really!

Most importantly I would say: Don't get caught up in the number of hours here.

The more important question is to identify the business value of getting this fixed — which is probably equal to the business liability of not fixing it.

In other words, how painful is it to just leave this alone as it is? How often does this problem come up? What does it cost you (e.g. user goodwill, lost event fees, staff time, etc.) on average, each time it happens? You may not know exactly, but you might be able to make some kind of rough estimate of this cost.

If that cost is greater than what you'd pay to get it fixed, then you've got a good business case to fix it.

If it's not, then you have a good business case to just leave it alone and deal with any related problems as they comes up.

One more thing:

Hourly estimates are notoriously fuzzy. He may get it done in 5-6 hours as he said, or it may be less, or it may go over. If it would help you by reducing uncertainty, I'd be happy to make sure he fixes it for a fixed total price equivalent to his 8 hours, whether it takes more than that or not. This might be a desirable way for you to reduce the risks of additional cost if it should go far over the estimate.

I hope this helps! Let me know if you have more questions.

Thanks,
Allen

“Should I spend 50 hours on this?”

Should you hire somebody to spend 50 hours fixing a problem?

It might sound like a simple question, but you probably noticed already that it leaves a lot of room for uncertainty.

The uncertainty is in almost every word of the question:

• Should: Who's to say? By what standard are we measuring? What are the alternatives? What are the risks?

• You: What's your role in this project? What is your knowledge of the problem at hand? What's your experience handing off tasks to other people? How would success or failure in this effort impact you personally?

• Hire: What kind of business relationship are we actually talking about? Are you conducting a talent search or do you have someone in mind?

• Someone: Who is this person? What knowledge do they have of the problem and of how it's affecting your situation? How much do you trust them to actually get the results you're after?

• To spend 50 hours: Do you really want them to spend 50 hours? Are you hiring them to log hours? Do you care how long it takes them? What happens if it takes them longer, and what reason do you have to believe that it won't?

• Fixing: Do you know exactly the outcome you're trying to achieve? Do you know what a home run would look like? Are you really just looking for a technical "fix", or are you hoping to achieve a measurable business outcome?

• A problem: What's the problem you're trying to fix? What's the business benefit of resolving it? What's the business downside of just leaving it unresolved and focusing on other issues?

This question was paraphrased from one that a client asked me today. She's discovered a bug in a CiviCRM extension, and the extension author is giving an hourly estimate to fix the bug.

Tomorrow, I’ll share a paraphrase of my response.

Meanwhile, ask yourself:

What would you tell her? What would you tell yourself in a similar situation?

All the best,
A.

Work in progress

To folks who don't know where it's going, any work in progress can look a little off.

Like the new restaurant going up across the street from me: while they were just putting up the framework, I thought it looked awful. The shape of it was just all wrong.

This week they started putting on the facade, and it's actually pretty nice.

Trying new things in your CRM system can feel like that too. But as long as you know where you're going with it, that's okay.

If you have a clear goal in mind, and you know how you plan to get there, don't be bothered if it's not obvious to everyone else.

All the best,
A.

The rubber duck

Sometimes just talking through a problem can be enough to point to one or more solutions.

You could talk it through with a coach or mentor, but with a little practice you can also find ways to talk it through on your own.

The trick is to expose all of your underlying assumptions by explaining it to someone who doesn't know much about your situation, and who doesn't have a personal stake in the outcome.

It doesn't even have to be a real person.

This duck has no ears, but is a fine listener. (Source: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)

I know some software developers who work through difficult coding problems by explaining it all to a rubber duck they keep on their desk.

That's why the duck is there. It's his only job.

Here's the thing:

Some of the biggest impediments to our success are our own unspoken assumptions.

Forcing yourself to slow down enough to explain it to a disinterested party, even an inanimate one, can help you to examine those assumptions frankly, and get to a clear understanding of how everything fits together.

It just takes a little practice, but it's usually worth the effort.

All the best,
A.

Crisis vs opportunity

I have a few clients who come to me only when they have urgent problems. Maybe they're opening a new event registration next week, but it's not all working as expected and they're worried that it will be a disaster.

So I help them get it working properly, until they're comfortable opening registration. And then I don't hear from them again until some other problem comes up.

I have other clients who come to me early, to work out a strategy for tackling some new opportunity they’ve seen. We figure out their goals, workout a strategy, and either I'll help them with the implementation or they'll go back and do it themselves.

It's just a difference in working style.

Some people focus on putting out fires. Others focus on reaching for new opportunities.

Which working style do you have?

Which one would you like to have?

All the best,
A.

The perfect bug killer

A while back I read about a fellow who placed ads in magazines advertising the perfect bug killer.

It offered some amazing claims, all of which were true:

• Safe to use around children and pets

• No harmful chemicals

• So simple a child could use it

• Guaranteed 100% effective

• Delivered to your door for the low cost of $15

Here's what was delivered:

Two blocks of wood, one marked with an X. Printed Instructions: “Place bug on X; strike bug firmly with second block.”

That bug killer is perfect. 100% effective, and very inexpensive.

Of course, if you want something that's going to work in the real world, you’re going to have to make some trade offs.

All the best,
A.

Perfect systems

Can you imagine the perfect CRM system?

Perfect is hard to define, but I imagine the perfect CRM system would meet these requirements:

• Easy to use by everyone in all situations without training

• Able to handle every conceivable use case for every conceivable user

• 100% guaranteed to be free of bugs

• Beautiful and pleasing to the eye

• Maximum cost of ownership: $0

Obviously, this doesn't exist.

You can tweak the requirements and trade off one for another, but you're not going to find one CRM that checks all of those boxes.

There's no right answer. It's just a question of where you want to place your priorities.

All the best,
A.

Defining the problem

I've just started reading How to Measure Anything by Douglas Hubbard.

I'm not ready to recommend it yet. I'll let you know.

But here's a little gem that stood out to me:

A problem well stated is a problem half solved.
- Charles Kettering, 1876-1957

Sometimes we get a sense of an opportunity.

Or that something's not quite right and probably should be addressed.

So we know there's a problem. And we'd like it solved.

But what is it exactly that we'd like to solve?

Hubbard’s statement matches my experience. I see it quite a lot with my clients. I even see it going through homework with my kids:

The mere act of thinking the thing through enough to state it clearly can be enough, all by itself, to make the solution obvious.

Here's the thing:

The sense that something needs to be addressed is only the seed of opportunity.

Stating clearly what you'd like to achieve gives you a specific objective on which to focus your efforts.

It tells you what you can measure to determine whether you've succeeded or not.

And often, it will show you exactly what you need to improve.

Once you know that, you can decide much more easily how to do it, how hard that will be, and whether it's worth the effort.

If it's not worth the effort, you can just move on to something else.

But if it is, you can practically put a win in your schedule. How cool is that?

All the best,
A.

Expect to guess wrong

The “very best” way to organize your data will depend a lot on how you're going to use it.

Reporting and segmentation are some of the most high-value uses of your CRM. Obviously you're not just tracking and entering all this data just for fun.

You want to be able to examine it later and use it to advance your mission.

Naturally you’ll want to store this data in a structure that's going to be most useful when it comes time for reporting an analysis.

The reality, though, is that you won't always know all of the ways this data can be used later on.

Sooner or later, you’ll look back and say, “I wish this data were organized differently.”

The future is hard to see. Sometimes you’ll guess wrong.

But here’s the thing:

When that time comes, when you realize that the data has been stored in a way that's hard to use for one need or another, all is not lost. You can restructure it.

You, or your staff, or some expert that you bring in can reorganize that data.

Don't let that stop you from collecting the data in the first place.

A little forethought is helpful, but don’t let “analysis paralysis” create needless delays.

When a new needs arises, or your insights become clearer, your effort can be well placed in light of your new strategies and understanding.

All the best,
A.

When should you call your coach?

If you've got someone helping you navigate the mastery of your CRM system, then hopefully you've got a great relationship with them and communication is easy.

But like everything, your time with your coach or mentor is a limited resource.

Here are a few tips to use that resource most effectively:

1. Do your homework

With my coaching clients, I don't mind answering any questions they may have — really. I make sure in the beginning that my coaching clients are people I love talking to.

But when I'm the one getting the coaching (like everyone, I have areas of my life where I benefit from experienced help), I don't want to use up my coaching time with questions I could have answered myself.

Before you reach out to your coach, ask yourself:

• Have I read the documentation?

• Have I tried it myself a few different ways, and did I note the different results I'm getting with each variation?

2. Clarify your questions

It's inevitable that you'll use part of your time with your coach just to explain your situation and your questions.

You can make the most of that time by preparing your questions carefully.

• Where exactly are you getting stuck?

• Is it early in the conceptual phase of deciding how to tackle a challenge?

• Is it in the implementation, where you're pretty confident of what to do but having trouble getting it work?

Take notes on those questions so you're ready to dig in on the right areas when you're with your coach.

As a bonus, it happens a lot that just clarifying the question will go a long way toward finding the answer yourself. This is great! After all, making progress on your own is one of the goals of good coaching.

3. Focus on measurable goals

Sometimes it's useful to ask a general question just to increase your well-rounded knowledge of your CRM.

In that case "increasing your well-rounded knowledge" is the goal, and there is some way to measure it.

But more often, the ultimate value is in addressing some specific business goal: increasing membership retention, reducing staff workload, increasing donor engagement and giving, etc.

When you're knee-deep in a problem, it can be easy to forget what you're really trying to accomplish.

• As you prepare to reach out to your coach, take a step back and put some focus on your actual business goals.

• This helps ensure you're getting measurable value out of your work with them, not just slogging through a bunch of technical detail.

Here's the thing:

Good coaching and mentoring is an incredible resource to help you become the master of your own data, and to nail your membership and fundraising goals.

But like all resources, it's limited.

A little preparation will help you make the most of it.

All the best,
A.

4 ways to deal with duplicates in CiviCRM

If you want to get a handle on duplicate contacts in your data, here are a few ways you can get a jump on the situation:

CiviCRM core features

CiviCRM provides good features right out of the box for finding and merging duplicate contacts.

Take a look at the documentation to get familiar.

Extensions

Once you're familiar with the core “Find and Merge Duplicate Contacts” features, you may find them to be quite sufficient for your needs.

But if you start to find that they're not quite enough, you can get a real boost in productivity from one of the extensions provided by the CiviCRM community.

Head over to the CiviCRM Extensions Directory for a look at what's available. For example:

• Deduper
  Adds a new screen & tools for faster deduping.

• X-Dedupe (Extended Deduplication)
  Offers a modular and flexible alternative to CiviCRM's built-in deduplication system. It's designed to be fast, scalable, and highly configurable, providing almost 60 modules for your configuration, and the capacity to automate the merging process once you get your configuration nailed down.

Human effort

Don't forget that a CRM system is only as good as the people who are using it. Good data quality demands that everyone give careful attention to deduping along the way.

You'll want to be sure that:

• Someone is assigned the task of periodically finding and merging duplicates.

• Staff members who create new contacts are trained to look for existing contacts first, and to pay attention to CiviCRM's in-app alerts when a possible duplicate is being created.

Custom development

This is last on the list because all of the above will usually be enough —and because custom development is an expense that can't be undertaken lightly.

But for a few clients, I've found that the business case really does justify a little customization.

Our more successful efforts have been around automating the process of scanning for duplicate contacts. Site admins are alerted when potential duplicates are found, and they can, at their convenience, review those duplicate candidates and either mark them as "not duplicates" or merge them appropriately.

Here's the thing:

Whatever your situation, once you get above a few hundred contacts, you're probably going to start seeing duplicates in your data. Don't let this go un-checked.

Stay on top of it from the beginning, and if you're already behind, find a way to address it sooner rather than later.

It won't just "go away" by itself.

All the best,
A.

Not the droids you're looking for: trouble with duplicates

Duplicates in your CRM are usually a minor annoyance, but sometimes they can be downright debilitating.

A client of mine finally reached out last week about significant headaches from duplicates:

• The dupes added hours per week to her workload — frustrating!

• Reports on important topics were never accurate — disappointing!

• She had resorted to tracking accurate data in a spreadsheet — what the heck?!

• Even worse: With all this extra work she felt so pressed for time that actually finding and merging the duplicates seemed like an impossible task — so it just kept growing!

So, what's going on here?

Her site provides memberships to organizations, which are inherited by the organization's employees. Those employees then get access to members-only content under WordPress.

Problem is, there were hundreds of duplicate organizations — and while one of them (let's say "ACME Droids 1") might have a valid membership, the duplicate ("ACME Droids 2") had none.

As a result:

• Logged-in users who are actually employees of ACME Droids (but only had a relationship to the non-member "ACME Droids 2") were being blocked from members-only content.

• Member organizations were getting requests for payment on unpaid dues when they were already paid up — embarassing!

• Because the organization names both say “ACME Droids”, staff often didn’t realize they were looking at the wrong one, and had no idea where these problems were coming from.

After she reached out for help, we were able to analyze the situation and come up with a good solution for her.

CiviCRM is now cleaning up most of the duplicates automatically, and proactively alerting her of new potential duplicates that need her attention to merge.

No more membership headaches, embarassing miscalculations, extra work, or incorrect user access rejections.

Here's the thing:

No matter what CRM you're running, you're going to have duplicate records. As your data policies increase in complexity and nuance, those duplicates can start to cause surprising problems.

Cleaning up duplicate records is like flossing your data. It's probably not fun, but neglecting it can lead to growing pain over time.

Stay on top of it if you can. And if you get into a bind, get some help.

It's not an impossible problem, and you can create healthy and painless routines to deal with it.

All the best,
A.

Impact reporting strategy: KPIs

A little more on impact reporting. We've already talked benefits and strategy.

I want to drill down on this part of the strategy:

Identify your key performance indicators (KPIs): How will you know if you're getting closer to achieving your stated goals and objectives?

Once you've identified the goals and objectives that you'll pursue in support of your mission — and that you want folks to help you achieve — it helps next to think about how you'll know if you're on track to achieve those goals.

Let’s say you're aiming to increase your membership rolls by 15% in the coming year. Obviously, you'll be tracking total membership numbers as you go along.

But what are some early indicators that you can measure in support of that goal? The answer depends entirely on your membership strategy, but here are some examples:

• Are current members engaging more with your content and programs, and thus more likely to feel value in renewing?

• Are members and advocates referring more new people to your organization, and thus increasing the number of people who may be considering membership?

• Is your content and programming getting increased readership and participation, so more potential members are learning about the benefits of membership?

These are all activities that are upstream from actually joining or renewing a membership.

If you believe that increases in these measurements will lead to increases in total membership, it's smart to monitor them along the way.

Here's the thing:

Whatever goals and objectives you're targeting in support of your mission, it's very unlikely that they will just materialize at the end of your timeline without some earlier indicators that you're on the right track.

There are surely some precursor activities leading up to the achievement of those goals.

By measuring along the way, you'll have an opportunity to adjust your strategy, and to report those early-indicator successes to your stakeholders.

And it's them that you need to inspire, not just about the end goal, but about the progress you're making along the way.

All the best,
A.

“Sh*t nonprofits say”

I just found this hillarious, thought you might, too. Snarky, but hillarious:

How can we put evaluation tools in place for projects we've already completed? What are our metrics?

(It’s a tweet from Sh*t Nonprofits Say, which is worth a follow, or at least a quick look, if you like a little laugh-while-you-cry commiseration now and then.)

In case you’ve missed the joke, I’ll spell it out: The desired outcome metrics are part of the goal. Cherry-picking them post hoc kind of … doesn’t count.

Sure, it’s not just nonprofits that feel pressure to spin every poorly planned effort into a celebration of success. (Politicians do it all the time.)

But in a world where words like “accountability” and “metrics” so easily lose their meaning in the shuffle of tight budgets and rotating leadership, this “ready, fire, aim” kind of thinking seems to creep in a lot.

Remember this:

Goals with measurable targets are something you aim for, so you can consistently improve your outcomes.

Coming up with metrics after the fact is, well, cheating.

Don’t cheat yourself.

All the best,
A.

Hidden “features”

Sometimes things don't work right, for reasons that are anything but obvious.

For example, today I finally realized that my phone was putting itself into "do not disturb" mode when I place if face-down on my desk (or on my car seat).

For a long time, I wondered why my podcasts would pause when I put the phone face-down. And why I would have missed calls — for no apparent reason — when I was certain my phone had not rung.

Turns out, my phone was "helping me" by deciding to go silent without my knowledge. It’s a “feature”.

Once I knew that, it was easy enough to find the setting and disable that silly thing.

It was burried deep in an obscure settings page, but it was there.

Here's the thing:

If I'd had someone to ask, I could have solved this long ago.

It was a pebble in my shoe, but I lived with it and learned to work around it.

But now that I've found and fixed it, life is just better.

What little mysteries are bugging you?

CiviCRM seems like it has a mind of its own sometimes?

It probably doesn't. You might just need a little help figuring it out.

All the best,
A.

Impact reporting strategy: Mission and goals

Let's talk a little more about impact reporting strategy. (See previous emails about benefits and implementation steps, if you like.)

As with everything, it helpst to start with the end in mind: your mission, goals, and objectives.

Donors, advocates, members, volunteers, even your board — they're already concerned about the impact you're trying to make in the world.

But they need a reason to believe that you're on the right track to accomplishing it.

So tell them. State your goals.

What are you and your stakeholders aiming to achieve together? What are the actual goals you're trying to accomplish as an organization?

Useful goals tend to stick to the SMART framework: specific, measurable, assignable, relevant, and time-bound.

• Specific: They target a specific area for improvement.

• Measurable: They quantify the intended progress (they target a number or percentage of measurable units).

• Assignable: They specify who — an individual or a team — will make it happen.

• Realistic: They state what results can realistically be achieved, given available resources.

• Time-bound: They specify when those results should be achieved.

Here's the thing:

Inspiring your stakeholders is just like everything else: start with your goals.

Start by formulating a few simple goal statements, and state them in a way that's relevant to both your stakeholders' vision and to the people you serve.

If you can do that, you're on the right track to demonstrating your ability to get tangible results in your mission.

And that's something people want to buy into.

All the best,
A.

Impact reporting: strategy

Measuring and reporting on the impact you make in the world is a critical step in building trust and engaging all of your stakeholders.

I wrote yesterday about some of the benefits that good impact reporting can bring.

But how do you do it? How do you build an effective strategy for good impact reporting?

Here are five important steps:

1. Start with your organization’s mission, goals, and objectives: What are you and your stakeholders aiming to achieve together?

2. Identify your key performance indicators: How will you know if you're getting closer to achieving your stated goals and objectives?

3. Create a plan for data collection and analysis: Is it enough to just analyze the data that you've been tracking? Do you need to add surveys, interviews, or focus groups? Who’s responsible for aggregating and analyzing this data, and reporting on the outcomes?

4. Create a reporting framework: How frequently will you make these reports? To what audience? And in what format?

5. Implement and evaluate your strategy: As with everything, you’ll be well served to schedule a periodic review of your impact reporting strategy. How much effort is it taking? What benefits is it bringing? What improvements could make it more effective?

I'm sure we could unpack each one of those points, because there's a lot there.

I'll pick some of these apart a little more deeply in future emails.

All the best,
A.