1. Tips and Tools for
Technology Planning
#12ntcttpl
Peter Campbell
Ariel Gilbert-Knight
Carlos Bergfeld
Karl Robillard
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3. Agenda
• Introducing Planning: Peter Campbell
• How Do I Actually Make a Plan: Ariel Gilbert-Knight and Carlos Bergfeld
• Tale from the Trenches: Karl Robillard
• Q&A
TIPS AND TOOLS FOR
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TECHNOLOGY PLANNING
4. Organizational Planning
A Technology Plan has to integrate with and support broader organizational
planning
A unified strategic plan ties together the
• Strategic plan,
• Business plans, and
• Budget
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TECHNOLOGY PLANNING
5. Definitions
• A Strategic Plan describes the key strategies that the organization will
pursue in order to accomplish the mission. These tie directly to the
mission statement, goals and values.
• A Business Plan outlines the steps required to accomplish the strategies.
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6. Planning Frameworks
All Stakeholder Input
• Anyone who makes decisions should be at the table and all staff
perspectives should be considered
Balanced Scorecards
• Strategies should tie to key organizational components (Financial,
Constituent, Internal Process, Employee)
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7. All Stakeholder Perspective
• If only senior execs participate in planning, key perspectives will be
missed. Include staff from all levels, board, constituents.
• Democratizing the planning will infuse mission awareness at all levels of
organization.
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8. Balanced Scorecards
A balanced scorecard identifies four areas that your strategic plan should
address:
• financial,
• constituent (or customer),
• internal business processes, and
• employee learning and growth.
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9. Balanced Scorecard
Constituent strategy:
• starting a newsletter to inform and engage constituents, or
Financial strategy:
• program-related services, such as offering classes to job seekers or
providing counseling to abuse victims
Internal business process strategy:
• instituting a new purchase order process.
Employee training strategy:
• employee bonuses or internal training.
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TECHNOLOGY PLANNING
10. Example: Supporting Criteria
Strategy Area Objectives Measures Targets Initiatives
Start
Increase Increase
monthly
constituent mission
newsletter
awareness awareness 5% increase
eCRM
of our in new
analytics Add
accomplish- Consti- Increase prospects
member-
ments by tuents donations
Donations ship to web
distributing 7% increase
increases site
a monthly Improve in donations
email communi-
Publicize in
newsletter cation
NP Times
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11. Strategic Implementation
• Technology plans aren’t laundry lists of applications and systems to be installed.
• A strategic technology plan must be well-informed by business needs and
developed in light of org-wide goals.
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12. Comprehensive Evaluation
• SWOT analyses
• Technical and end-user assessments of options
• Clear understanding of business needs versus software assumptions
• Creativity
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13. 360°Participation
• Software evaluations have to be made by both the technologists and the users, and
those decisions have to be vetted from the top.
• If the users don’t know what the application will do for them, it’s not worth buying
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14. Technology Planning
• You can’t budget effectively on a year-to-year basis.
• Long-term planning allows you to spread out recurring costs and space
out large projects in ways that even out the expense.
• Developing a road map for major system upgrades and replacements will
smooth and foster adoption.
• Large projects, such as email system upgrades or changing databases,
can be planned in ways that will ease the pain for everyone involved.
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15. Elements of the Plan
• Technology plans should have at least three components:
Strategy
Support
Actions
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16. A plan answers these questions
How will the actions laid out in the plan support the mission and
organizational strategic plan?
How will staff be resourced to use the technology?
Does the organization have a coherent strategy for application support
and training?
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TECHNOLOGY PLANNING
17. Conclusion
Good planning requires that you understand who you are, what technology
must do well for you, and where you can get away with it by doing things
more creatively, or, perhaps, not quite as elegantly as a for-profit
organization might.
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18. Resources
• Peter Campbell
• psc@techcafeteria.com
• http://techcafeteria.com
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19. I Know I Need A Plan…Now What?
• Take a deep breath
• Follow our step-by-step guide
flickr.com/mattiasostmar
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20. Mission, Mission, Mission
• Before you get started, review your organization’s mission statement and
strategic plan
• Remember, technology is not a goal in and of itself - Technology is
important because of what it allows people to do
• See NTEN’s “Forget the Tech, Let’s Talk Mission” for an introduction to
mission-driven technology planning (bit.ly/mission-driven)
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21. Creating Your Tech Strategy
• Step 1: Understand where you are.
• Step 2: Understand where you want to be.
• Step 3: Identify and prioritize technology solutions.
• Step 4: Lay out a plan for funding and implementing technology changes.
• Step 5: Write up your technology strategy.
TIPS AND TOOLS FOR
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TECHNOLOGY PLANNING
22. Step 1: Understand Where You Are
• Assess current infrastructure
– Inventory
– Start having conversations
– Assess as you go
flickr.com/orangebrompton
TIPS AND TOOLS FOR
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23. Step 1: Understand Where You Are
Inventory tools
• Do it manually: use the worksheets
in the Toolkit
• Automate (some of) it: use
TechAtlas for Nonprofits – get
started at techatlas.org
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24. Step 1: Understand Where You Are
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25. Step 1: Understand Where You Are
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26. Step 1: Understand Where You Are
• Assess current infrastructure
– Remember: People are a part
of your tech infrastructure.
flickr.com/justkristin
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27. Step 1: Understand Where You Are
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28. Step 1: Understand Where You Are
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29. Step 1: Understand Where You Are
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30. Step 1: Understand Where You Are
• Don’t panic (yet)
flickr.com/lentaslagrimasnegras
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31. Creating Your Tech Strategy
• Step 1: Understand where you are.
• Step 2: Understand where you want to be.
• Step 3: Identify and prioritize technology solutions.
• Step 4: Lay out a plan for funding and implementing technology changes.
• Step 5: Write up your technology strategy.
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32. Step 2: Understand Where You
Want To Be
• What is working well?
• What could be working better?
• What is broken?
flickr.com/timsnell
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33. Step 2: Understand Where You
Want To Be
• Identify the problem first
– Don’t think “What do we want to
buy”
– Think “What do we want to do”
TIPS AND TOOLS FOR
flickr.com/arjin
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34. Step 2: Understand Where You
Want to Be
Fundraising Manager
Volunteer Manager
flickr.com/arjin
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35. Where You Want to Be: Examples
Example 1: Example 2:
We are an organization that provides We are a domestic violence support
comprehensive services to homeless organization located in an area with
persons in the Bay Area. We require an increasingly high percentage of
a secure central database to manage Spanish-speaking residents. To
and track client information. Having address this population's needs, we
one database will save time that is plan to update our website to provide
now wasted in multiple entries of the information and resources in Spanish
same data and will create one as well as English.
accurate source for all client
information.
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36. Now It’s Your Turn…
Exercise:
• Write down a few technology goals
for your organization
• Evaluate each one:
– Can you clearly articulate the
benefits the technology will
provide?
– Would implementing this
technology help your organization
better meet its mission? How so?
• Try to rewrite the goal so that it: is
not focused on a particular
technology, but is instead focused on
what the technology will allow you to
do (and why what it allows you to do flickr.com/photosteve101
is important for your organization)
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37. Creating Your Tech Strategy
• Step 1: Understand where you are.
• Step 2: Understand where you want to be.
• Step 3: Identify and prioritize technology solutions.
• Step 4: Lay out a plan for funding and implementing technology changes.
• Step 5: Write up your technology strategy.
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38. Step 3: Identify and Prioritize
Technology Solutions
This is where you start talking about specific technologies
• How secure is your technology set-up? Are there any gaps that should be
addressed?
• Are there better data storage and collaboration solutions available?
• Will upgrading to more recent hardware or software help?
• Is there a tool out there that will fill in a gap in your toolset?
• Would it help if your staff were trained (or retrained) in how to use your
technology?
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TECHNOLOGY PLANNING
39. Creating Your Tech Strategy
• Step 1: Understand where you are.
• Step 2: Understand where you want to be.
• Step 3: Identify and prioritize technology solutions.
• Step 4: Lay out a plan for funding and implementing technology changes.
• Step 5: Write up your technology strategy.
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40. Budgeting
• Include all costs associated with
implementation (30/70 rule)
• Time is a budget item
flickr.com/aidanmorgan
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41. Budgeting
• Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
– Staff support
– Vendor fees
– Staff training
– Bandwidth costs
– Hardware costs
– Infrastructure costs
– Technology replacement
– Additional supplies
flickr.com/eric731
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42. The Three P’s of Implementation
hased schedule
ublicize changes
lease, please, please train
your staff
flickr.com/lwr
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43. More Implementation Tips
• Know who you need to talk to
• Designate a point person
• Break projects into tasks
• Assign responsibilities
• Establish a timeline
• Evaluate your success
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TECHNOLOGY PLANNING
44. Creating Your Tech Strategy
• Step 1: Understand where you are.
• Step 2: Understand where you want to be.
• Step 3: Identify and prioritize technology solutions.
• Step 4: Lay out a plan for funding and implementing technology changes.
• Step 5: Write your technology strategy.
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45. Step 5: Write Your Tech Strategy
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50. Your Tech Strategy
Step 4: Plan for funding
and implementing
changes
TIPS AND TOOLS FOR
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51. Your Tech Strategy
Step 5: Write Up Your
Tech Strategy
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52. Acknowledgments
Ariel and Carlos would like to thank
• The Blue Shield of California Foundation for their generous grant support
for developing these materials
• Elliot Harmon, Tierney Smith, and Jane Zhang for their content
contributions
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54. Tale from the Trenches
Karl Robillard has planned…
and lived to tell the tale
Communications and Outreach
Senior Manager
TIPS AND TOOLS FOR
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55. The Story of St. Anthony’s
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56. A Direct Appeal
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57. Tale from the Trenches
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58. Creating Your Tech Strategy
• Step 1: Understand where you are.
• Step 2: Understand where you want to be.
• Step 3: Identify and prioritize technology solutions.
• Step 4: Lay out a plan for funding and implementing technology changes.
• Step 5: Write up your technology strategy.
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59. The Technology Plan Trifecta
1) Mission
2) Values
3) Goals
…then what?
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60. Example: Supporting Criteria
Strategy Area Objectives Measures Targets Initiatives
Educate
PR Events
about St. A’s Coherent Increase
History and Mobile
Text-to-
consistent Community
Donate
Recharge Build Comm. = 250+
the St. awareness strategy mobile
Improve
Anthony around the donations
website user
base and need for Improved
Constituents interface
appeal to a addressing website
new issues of information Raise $5
Social Media
generation poverty architecture million
Strategy
of donors.
Raise funds Clearly Add to
Linking
for a New defined ‘ask’ donor base
Internal
Dining for by 20%
Constituents
RoomAND TOOLS FOR
TIPS constituents
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61. Channels of Communication
Traditional
Media
Social Media
General
Supporters
Staff,
Volunteers,
Guests
62. Road Map for FY 2011 - 2012
Public
Phase of
Holidays the
Capital
Campaign
Veterans
Day
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63. Communications Timeline
Completed by • Facebook ‘LIKE’ Campaign
• February – Facing Facebook
February 1st
• Facebook updates
Ongoing
• Blog updates
through public • Tweets
phase • Eblasts
• Text to Donate
• Giants PSAS
April/May/June
• Penny Pitch: Home game on June
12th against Astros
64.
65. Duck and Cover
1. BUY-IN
2. Facing Facebook
3. Technical obstacles (seen and unforseen)
4. Tales from the city
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