Monthly Archives: February 2010

I just finished reading Michelle Murrian’s article, “Cheap, Fast and Good. Can Nonprofits have them All?” Briefly, Michelle discusses the challenges of managing technology projects for not-for-profits. She mentions four factors that impact the timelines and budgets for these types of projects: identity crisis, multi-project juggling, new emerging complexities, and holidays (I’ll let you read the article for the full details). Her article really got me thinking about my own experiences working with nonprofits and NGOs. Specifically the identity crisis factor and the “Good/Fast/Cheap/Pick Two” decision. 

The ‘Identity Crisis’

In her article, Michelle describes how technology projects – particularly web design projects – “leads to an examination of internal communication or business process, or thoughts about external perceptions, that become either paralyzing, or require a level of internal organizational process work that just takes time [and additional resources].” I totally agree with her statement. It’s been my experience that “identity crisis” is usually the rate limiting factor on technology projects such as web projects. I contend that once organizations file away their mission statements, they forget how to describe themselves publicly. In addition, web projects (which typically fall into two categories: communications or community building) expose the fact that many organizations haven’t thought deeply about the conversation they want to have with the public, their funders or the communities they serve. This isn’t an issue specific to not-for-profits, as many private sector organizations also grapple with this issue. 

I think one of the keys to managing a successful technology project is to understand that technology does not exist in a silo. Rather, technology should be thought of as an enabler – it extends the capabilities and capacity of organizations. In the case of my clients, I try to help them explicitly define/decide what they do and what they want their technology project to accomplish. Once we’ve established this, we can then plan (including budgeting, allocation of resources, setting timelines, etc.) how technology can enable their efforts. Much of this explicit defining can be done before a consultant even walks through a client’s door. The client need only understand the value of the process and put in the effort. Speaking of value and effort…

The ‘Good/Fast/Cheap/Pick Two’ Decision – When Cheap Really Isn’t Cheap

We all understand that not-for-profits are under tremendous financial constraints – particularly during these challenging financial times. Volunteers and staff overtime have long been the life-blood of many organizations. Choosing a technology solution that is cheap is often a necessity, not a choice. However, choosing a solution based solely on finances is short-sighted at best. Consider this: add up the amount of time a technology solution has failed to work properly because it was rushed to launch; add in the amount of time your resident technology expert needed to get up to speed on a less-than-user-friendly solution; include the amount of time the replacement for your technology expert needed to get trained on that less-than-user-friendly solution. Take the total time and give it a dollar value. While you’re at it, multiply that dollar value by a value representing staff morale resulting from your solution (1 = I love it, can’t live without it, 5 = I’d rather stick pins in my eyes than use this technology!). I’m certain you’ll find that the actual ‘cost’ of your inexpensive solution was not cheap at all. 

Now, I’m not advocating that you pay top dollar for all of your technology needs. In fact, many of the technology needs of not-for-profits can be handled with open-source and free solutions e.g. Google Docs, OpenOffice, etc. Sometimes an organization just needs a MacGyvr-type solution to get by. That said, if long-term success is in your organization’s plans, it’s time to drop the boot-strapping mentality and budget/plan accordingly for a successful technology project. My suggestion to all of my clients, “Never choose cheap. Cheap is a myth. You can make your project less expensive by doing a lot of the work yourself (see ‘The Identity Crisis’). But never choose cheap. You’ll always pay in the end.”