Support options: Trade-offs

So you're running CiviCRM (probably under Drupal or WordPress) and somebody is responsible for making sure the site runs well.

Naturally that person reports to someone above them, and possibly they have a team working under their direction.

But who is that one responsible individual?

You've got a few options, and they all represent a trade-off between:

• Reliability

• Customizability

• Low cost

And the options, boiled down to a few categories, are these:

1. CiviCRM as a service

2. Full-service agency support

3. In-house expert (with or without outside help)

Remember, everything is a trade-off. Probably none of these will be "perfect" for you, and none of them are even "best" for evrey organization.

But one of them — or some hybrid of them — will be.

More tomorrow.

- A.

CiviCRM support: arrangements vary

If you're running CiviCRM (and probably Drupal or WordPress as well), there’s someone who is maintaining and supporting that site.

It might be one person, or a team of people.

They might all be your internal staff, or a mix of outside contractors.

The essential question, though, is this:

Who's responsible for coordinating that effort, and who's accountable for making sure the site runs well?

The are a variety of common arrangements to assign that responsibility.

I'll cover some examples in the next few days.

But ultimately, if you care about the value you get from your CRM, it's critical that you know who's the one individual person responsible to keep it running smoothly.

(Hint: If you don’t know, it might just be you.)

All the best,
A.

You might have to swim the river

Having a good map is important when you’re navigating unfamiliar territory, but even that isn’t as good as the experience of someone who's been there.

Imagine that your map shows two routes to your destination.

One of them looks far shorter than the other.

An experienced guide can tell you, "Yeah, we’ve had some heavy rains, and that bridge might be washed out. If we go the short way, we might have to swim the river."

Sure, there could be many good reasons to take the short route anyway. But it's nice to know what you're letting yourself in for.

Here's the thing:

There's almost always more than one way to do something in CiviCRM.

New extensions and core features are popping up all the time that offer wonderful possibilities.

And the challenges of those new options are not always obvious.

It never hurts to reach out to your coach or advisor for some preliminary giudance.

It helps to know ahead of time if you might have to swim the river.

All the best,
A.

The coxswain isn’t rowing

If you’ve ever seen crew rowing, you’ve probably noticed there's often one person in the boat who isn’t rowing — at all!

There she sits in the rear of the boat, just watching, and talking (often shouting).

What the heck? Is this person serving any purpose at all? Isn't she just dead weight?

Nope.

That's the coxswain, and she (or he) is filing a very important role.

The rowers is all face the rear of the boat. They can't see where they're going.

They also don't have a clear view of each other.

But the coxswain faces forward and sees all of them. The coxswain is there to steer the boat, and to coordinate the power and rhythm of the rowers.

Far from being a deadweight impediment, the coxswain is critical to the success of the team.

Here's the thing:

Any project you undertake, any coordinated effort among your team members, needs somebody to watch, and steer, and coordinate.

Some outsiders, or even some team members, might assume that person is not pulling their weight.

But without that coordination, everybody's work is at risk of failure.

All the best,
A.

Your organization doesn’t exist

What is your organization going to achieve in the coming year?

What actions will it perform to achieve those goals?

Let me suggest to you that those are trick questions.

Your organization doesn't hope, doesn't act, and doesn't achieve.

Only its people do that.

• Any accomplishment is based on the individual or collective actions of one of more people.

• Any goal that's genuinely pursued is based only on the hope and commitment felt by specific individuals.

• Any sense of joy in accomplishment is felt only within the minds of the people who worked hard to achieve it.

Here's the thing:

As a leader in your organization (which you are, regardless of your job title), what are you hoping your people will achieve?

If you really want that to happen, it's up to you to connect those people to that goal — inspire their hopes, coordinate their efforts, smooth their challenges, and in the end, encourage them to celebrate.

I get it. It's a habit for most of us to focus on the organization as a whole, as if it really were a thing that exists on its own.

But just because that's our usual way of thinking, it doesn't mean it's really effective, or even true.

All the best,
A.

A goldfish grows as big you let it

Every project or campaign you might undertake will consume some amount of your resources.

Time, money, mental energy, goodwill.

In fact, that project will usually be quite happy soak up as much of those resources as you let it.

There will always be "just one more" little feature to include, no matter how much time or funding you add to the project.

It's something like a goldfish, that always grows to fit the size of the fishbowl.

But here's the thing:

Projects grow in scope — and in corresponding delays and maintenance costs — only if we let them.

And usually, the only reason we let them is that we forget the value of a project that actually launches, compared to one that's always "almost done.”

All the best,
A.

Facing adversity

Have you ever been snowed in unexpectedly?

Ever run out of gas in the middle of nowhere?

Ever had an internet outage or a burst water pipe make your office unusable for a day or two?

You've probably had lots of experiences like that: unexpected events that create significant inconvenience and even physical discomfort.

And you know what?

You came through it.

Here's the thing:

Even when a surprise development is really difficult to deal with, most of us come through it just fine.

Sure, it can be a setback, and it's worth planning to try and avoid such things.

But when those things happen — in your career, or your organizational mission, or your team development — remember that you will get through it.

Whether it was caused by your own lack of planning or something completely unforeseeable, that's a question for the post-mortem analysis.

In the moment of trouble, it's important to keep a cool head, lead your team by example, and deal with matters at hand.

Get through the initial "freak out" as quickly as possible, and face this thing head-on.

Because you can.

Whatever the challenge, you will deal with it.

Then you'll learn what you can from it, turn blame and regret into wisdom and experience, and move on to the next thing.

We're people. That's what we do.

All the best,
A.

CiviCRM training resorces

Introducing new staff to CiviCRM can be a daunting task.

There’s just a lot to cover, and it can be challenging to decide which parts to introduce first.

Fortunately, the CiviCRM Training Guide is a great resource.

It outlines three fairly complete curricula:

• 1-day Administrator Training

• 2-day Administrator Training

• 1-day Fundraiser Training

As with most things, you might want to modify the plan a little to fit your needs.

But these courses are a great start for taking new staff through the basics, or even walking yourself through the learning process.

Give them a look, and see how they might help you empower yourself and your staff to work more efficiently.

All the best,
A.

Empowering your staff

Investing in your own skills development is a powerful thing.

• Taking time to experiment and learn on your own

• Attending a structured training course

• Just making a regular effort to read up on the latest trends in your sector.

All of that is an investment of time that empowers you to make better use of your time going forward.

In other words: you invest time wisely, in order to recoup that time and more.

So, what about your staff?

How can you help them get that same benefit?

One way is to conduct regular staff trainings.

• Pick a schedule that works for you, say, a short session every two or three months.

• Cover topics that will empower your staff jn their work.

• Listen to their questions and feedback, and let that inform future sessions.

Naturally this is a bigger investment of time than just educating yourself.

But then, you can also expect a bigger return on that investment — since it's your whole team who will benefit.

All the best,
A.

Data is confidence

Let’s say I asked you how confident you were that you could drive from your house to the airport in under two hours. (Yes, it’s the same question I posed in Monday’s Everything is a bet email.)

There’s one very important factor in deciding your confidence level, which you might not even have thought about because it’s so obvious: having some clue about the typical drive time.

• Have you ever actually made the drive?

• If not, have you checked the drive time in your maps app?

• Or, do you even know roughly how far the airport is?

If those answers are all “no,” it’ll be very hard to claim you’re at all confident about the drive time.

The good news is, you can dramatically increase your confidence very easily: just turn any of those “noes” into “yeses.”

Here’s the thing:

When you have little-to-no data, you should have little-to-no confidence.

By adding even a small bit of data — even rough estimates — you can significantly increase your reasonable level of confidence.

And, the bonus question:

Of the three yes/no questions above, which one do you think is the easiest to turn from “no” to “yes”?

Probably, it’s “checking your maps app.” You don’t actually have to make the drive yourself to find out.

Often there’s an easy and good-enough way to close the data gap, so you can get to a confidence level that suits your risk tolerance.

All the best,
A.

P.S. Yes, I checked the correct plural of “no” and “yes.” Yes, it looks funny to me, too. So does the other correct way. C'est la vie.

Risk aversion, or procrastination?

So, if Everything is a bet, you might want to do all you can to get to 100% certainty before investing your limited resources.

But that would be a mistake.

Virtually no future prediction can be 100% certain. We must always proceed — if we’re going to proceed at all — in the face of some uncertainty.

insisting on 100% certainty means never taking action.

And in terms of results, doesn’t that inaction look an awful lot like procrastination?

All the best,
A.

Everything is a bet

How confident are you that you could drive from your house to the nearest airport in under two hours, say, tonight?

You might be tempted to answer as a certainty: yes, or no.

But think a moment: If you say "no way," are you sure it’s literally impossible? What if you got insanely lucky with traffic and drove like a demon? Couldn't it be something greater than zero percent?

And if you say, "yes, absolutely," are you really that sure? Car trouble, traffic, accidents, family emergencies — a dozen things could slow you down. Couldn't it be something less than 100 percent?

Somewhere between zero and 100, there's a number that matches your level of confidence.

Why does this matter?

Because everything you do is a bet.

To attain a certain outcome, you'll make an investment of time, money, and mental energy.

And you might still fail.

This means that there are no sure bets. You must take on some risk.

So, how much risk is tolerable? Only you can decide.

Back to the airport:

If you're 50% sure you can make the drive in two hours, would you be okay with that? Or would you invest more time?

Is 80% certainty enough? Do you need 90%?

Here's the thing:

Your level of comfort with risk — your risk tolerance — is a real thing. It can actally be measured. And your organization’s risk tolerance is real and measurable, too.

Pay attention to that comfort level. Get a feel for your risk tolerance - and your organization's.

It will help you in making honest decisions that don't pretend to be 100% certain, and in making rational decisions about whether and how to proceed toward your goals.

You can’t win every bet.

But you can learn to measure your certainty and to move forward only when the risk is tolerable.

All the best,
A.

SCOTUS case could impact associations

If you’re a director at a professional association, take note:

An antitrust case now pending with the US Supreme Court could have major implications on association membership, particularly recruitment and retention.

The legal rubric is more than I want to get into here (especially since I'm no lawyer), but if this concerns you, I recommend the ASAE article here:

What a Pending Supreme Court Antitrust Case Means for Associations

All the best,
A.

“Teach me to code?”

Now and then, a client will ask me if custom development is something they could handle in-house. And if so, could I help them get started?

To the second question, the answer is: Yes, I can certainly help you get started. Actually, I could help you get pretty far along on that path.

And to the first question: Could you do that in house? Sure.

What's not being asked here is, "Should you?"

• Do you personally have any experience writing custom code?

• Do you have someone in-house who is?

• Considering the steep learning curve, is this the best use of your time?

• Considering that many people do this kind of thing as a career, is this something you want to add to your job description?

In most cases, the answer to all of those is, “No.”

Here's the thing:

Given enough genuine interest and dedication, there is probably no skill that you cannot acquire.

The important question is: Is it worth it?

But isn't that always the question?

All the best,
A.

Tools for in-house documentation

If you care about mastering your CRM and other systems, you’ll want to start building a library of documentation for yourself and your staff.

But where to start?

Google Docs (or something similar) is a fine start, but it probably won’t long until you notice its biggest limitation: because it’s so flexible, it provides very little structure for building an organized library of content.

As a result, you can quickly find yoruself with a lot of documentation that’s just hard to use.

Here are some alternatives that will provide that structure and allow you to easily organize all of your in-house documentation:

Use your CMS:

If you’re running CiviCRM under Drupal or WordPress, then keeping your documentation there can make a lot of sense.

• Your staff already have a password, and you can protect your in-house documentation behind that CMS login.

• Your CMS probabl already has a dedicated module or plugin for structuring this kind of content.

Under Drupal, the Book module is a great option. It’s part of Drupal core, so you only need to enable it if it’s not already enabled.

From drupal.org:

A book is a set of nodes tied together in a hierarchical structure, with chapters, sections, and subsections. You can use books for manuals, site resource guides, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), novel, or curricula. …

Users who have the right permission can create a book and write, review, modify, or rearrange the nodes that are part of a book. Many users can work together on a book; you can allow or disallow collaboration, to whatever extent you want. …

It also provides smooth navigation up and down the heirarchical structure (chapters and section), and to “previous” and “next” pages in each section.

If you’re running WordPress, you’ll probably want to try the PublishPress Series plugin (though there are many other options, as with almost everything in WordPress).

From publishpress.com:

PublishPress Series is a publishing plugin that allows you to organize posts into issues or series. This is ideal for magazines, newspapers, short-story writers, teachers, comic artists, or anyone who writes multiple posts on the same topic.

… You can organize chapters into an overall story.

Like many WordPress plugins, this one does offer a “pro” upgrade option with additional features, but you’ll probably be quite content with the free version.

Use a dedicated documentation wiki:

Maybe you’d rather have a separate dedicated site for your documentation.

Check out DocuWiki. It will run alongside your Drupal or WordPress site (or on any hosting platform that supports PHP — which is essentially “everyewhere”), and offers some advantages over using Drupal or WordPress:

• Wiki-like editing (a la Wikipedia) keeps track of previous versions, provides heirarchical navigation, search, and more.

• Dedicated interface that’s completely separate from your CMS — could be attractive if you’re not yet confident about adding plugins and managing permissions on your own live WordPress or Drupal site.

• Narrow set of formatting options — you can’t just “format content any way you wish,” which is actually an advantage because it tends to enforce a common structure on all of your pages.

Summary:

Google Docs is great to start, but its lack of structure can create challenges as you grow.

A dedicated documentation wiki, or a set of structured content in your Drupal or WordPress site, can make it all much easier for you to manage — and for your staff to use.

All the best,
A.

Customized systems need customized support

Your organization’s installation of CiviCRM is a unique system, because it's a combination of all these things:

• Your CMS (Drupal? WordPress? Joomla? Backdrop?)

• The specific version of CiviCRM

• Your collection of extensions

• Your collection of CMS plugins

• Any custom extensions or plugins you may be running

• Yout carefully configured user roles and permissions

• All of your configurations for contribution pages, memberships, events, and more

Add to that your organization's own unique policies, programs, and practices, and you have a system that's like none other in the world.

The advantage here is that you get a system that's customized to work exactly as you need it to.

The challenge is that you'll sometimes hit a question that no one but you can answer.

Who do you look to when you need help with those difficult questions?

All the best,
A.

Goals make the game

Think about the last time you really felt like celebrating.

• Your team won the world series.

• You made the last payment on your mortgage.

• Your kid passed that black belt test after years of work.

Whatever it was, do you remember that feeling?

That celebration feeling doesn't usually show up just because we "did a good job" or "did better than before."

It's because we set a challenging goal, invested our time and energy, and then achieved it.

It’s the goal.

Goals define the game.

Goals define the win.

You can always do a little better or achieve a little more. And that's great.

But when you set a goal and achieve it, that's more than great. It's awesome.

Name your goals. Invest. Achieve. And then celebrate.

All the best,
A.

“Exactly what we need”

If you happen across a complex software package that seems to be exactly what you need, I suspect one of two things is happening:

1. You're overlooking some important need, and you'll be disappointed in a month or two when you discover it's not met.

2. You should snap that baby up right away, and count yourself lucky.

Here's the thing:

Every organization's needs are unique.

It's next to impossible that your every need will be met by any given software package.

And insisting on a perfect match is likely just setting yourself up for disappointment.

Instead, look for something that's a "pretty good fit" to start with, and look for ways to modify both the software and your own methods until the fit is perfect.

Naturally those modifications will take effort.

But it's more practical than hoping for something that probably doesn't exist.

All the best,
A.

Make it easy for them

Your staff probably don’t need to be fully trained on every part of your CRM in order to use it well.

As long as they know how to do their specific tasks, they'll be fine.

In fact, we all use complex systems everyday without really knowing how they work under the hood.

My kids know how to use our washing machine perfectly well. Of course if it ever needs repair, they definitely don't know enough to fix it.

But using it is just a matter of pushing a few buttons and understanding some basic principles.

Nobody needs to know how it all works under the surface in order to make it do what they want.

You can do that for your staff too.

The trick lies in understanding the tasks they need to do and then configuring the simplest possible set of features that will allow them to do it.

Naturally, that can can require some effort on your part.

But as an investment, it's usually a lot more effective than trying to train everybody on everything.

All the best,
A.

Roller coasters and cars

Another funny thing about roller coasters and cars: the amount of control, and the cost per ride.

A roller coaster gives me very little control over my experience, and I must buy a ticket for each ride.

It's no surprise those two things are connected:

Why do I have to buy a ticket? Because I don't own the ride.

And why do I have very little control? Because I don't own the ride. The owners have a strong interest in providing a very predictable experience for all riders, so they can't afford to give riders control over that experience.

On the other hand, my car gives me a great deal of control over any number of rides, and though I do bear the cost of purchasing and maintaining it, I never have to buy a ticket.

Consider this a metaphor for the difference between a subscription-based software-as-a-service CRM and a self-hosted open-source CRM.

The one gives you an awful lot of predictability in exchange for limited control and pay-to-play pricing.

The other gives you more flexibility for a lower overall cost of ownership, in exchange for increased complexity (and the resulting potential for frustration).

They each have their place.

The question for folks like you and me is this: Is the extra flexibility worth the increased complexity — and is there perhaps a way to master that complexity so I can get the flexibilty without the frustration?

All the best,
A.