Community IT Innovators. Established 1993. Serving social mission organizations with integrated technology services you can trust.

People are an organization’s most important asset. We’ve all heard these words before. How is this translated really? Some leaders might say it’s the staff’s talents and special gifts, as well as experience, which are the asset. For some leaders, they appreciate that team members have the ability to learn and/or just simply follow instructions (which actually can go a long way to bringing about results).

In our interactions with various clients, whether they are local, national or international, and regardless of their mission, the value and reliance on highly talented people – and people who like to learn – is evident. It doesn’t stop there. There are some organizations which value their staff’s wisdom and find ways to draw on it authentically. This is something we highly support and encourage in our project approach.

Figuratively speaking, 90 – 95% of the answer to an organization’s problems, or desired innovations, is in the midst of the collective you – where the creativity and intelligence of multiple people across disciplines come together and do the hard work to find the answers. It sometimes requires having someone from the outside function as a source of creative tension and creative support for the group, and simultaneously provides a vital piece of missing expertise that helps complete the picture.

A lot of collective internal intelligence, with a little desire to ask for outside help, equates to the right synergy to find major answers. We know the synergy happens when we join with our clients in this way, and we have found ourselves in this place as well (we ask for outside help when we need it too).

Recently, Community IT Innovators (CITI) conducted a survey asking clients what factors are most important when choosing and evaluating a technology service provider.  Survey results are in!  Thank you to all of our clients who participated – your feedback is the most useful tool we have to improve our services.  Your comments make CITI – and our relationship with our clients – better and better.

Many qualities stood out as important to clients:

• Quality of Service Delivery is the highest-ranked factor when choosing or recommending a tech provider.  Thank you for your confidence, and where you indicated our service did not measure up, we’re taking immediate steps to improve.

• Competitive Price is important – but did not rank as the most important selection factor, even in the economic downturn.  We are gratified to provide value for your technology dollars and strive to lower your costs when we can economize without sacrificing quality.

• Good Fit for Current Needs, Experience with Nonprofits and Social Missions, and a Personal Level of Service are also key for many respondents.  CITI was founded to be a different kind of technology company, one that helps organizations have greater impact, and we know that we do that every day.  Thanks for noticing!

The survey gave further confirmation that your values are our values. Central to the CITI philosophy of building relationships and working with our clients is our commitment to provide a caring, personal level of service and to offer and implement just right solutions that are well-suited to a client’s current needs.

Again, thank you to all who participated in the survey!  If you want to share what’s most important to you, please leave a comment below, use our Contact Form,  or speak to your CITI contact at any time.

The energy level was high and the expertise and experience level in the room at the Managing Nonprofit Technology Projects (MNTP) event was varied.  Some participants facilitated sessions on specialized web development project topics, while other participants relatively new to the project management field participated in interactive discussions geared towards the “accidental project manager” and talked about web redesign project tips and processes with more experienced project managers.

Some key basic takeaways for effective project management:

• Defining Scope & Goals and Managing Budget & Timetable are the primary responsibilities of the PM.  Execution is the responsibility of the technical project team members.
• Communication & Transparency are key to a smooth project where everyone is on the same page and stays abreast of inevitable changes and challenges that occur.  The project manager and team should agree right off the bat on what communication tools they will consistently use, whether simply email and shared documents, a project management tool such as Basecamp, or even a private project blog or wiki for longer and more complex projects.
• Managing Laterally and working well with colleagues starts first with being a resource for them and finding out how you can help them, then they will be ready to reciprocate when something is needed from them.  (Good advice whether you’re managing a specific project or not!)
• A Project Manager plays the role of Facilitator & Community Organizer, facilitating communication and creating a needs-driven dialogue to draw out and articulate the top common priorities and goals of all the stakeholders and users involved in a technology project.
• Connecting and Managing Resources is more important than the ability to solve and do every problem and step of the process.  Delegate tasks and facilitate conversations that lead to solutions.
• Manage Expectations: Find out up front what’s most important to key stakeholders.  Is it functionality? Budget? Timeline? If compromises have to be made to meet the most important expectations, what’s flexible? What’s the definition of a successful project from top management or the client’s perspective?

Besides some good advice for managing a successful nonprofit technology project, being at MNTP gave participants a sense of camaraderie and a network of others in the nonprofit technology management field to reach out to for support.  More notes and tips from the discussions can be found on the event wiki.  Save the date on your calendar: due to the success of this event, there will be another similar event in DC on January 11th and 12th, 2010.

Update: The 2010 event is now scheduled for February 8th and 9th, view details and register here.

In Seth Godin’s blog today  a post on a good email relationship – the casebook kind you are supposed to do, over time, developing value, with information relevant and interesting to subscribers – and it does seem that as the economic cart topples over, the emails I’m getting are verging from just desperate to absolutely panicked fundraising intrusions from out of the blue.  It feels like strangers shouting at me from my inbox. To be fair, when three colleagues just got laid off so you have their work on top of your own while you try to perform in a way to keep your own job, you can think any quick easy and cheap campaign, if it turns up even just one donor,  seems like something you should try.  But I think Seth’s point in this economic situation holds even truer – your constituents and clients are having a hard time too.  Everyone’s desperate.  When you are desperate, you turn to comfort food, you regroup, you consolidate, you go with what you know will work.  So your communication needs to convey the value you bring to your established relationships – how we will all get through this together.  People considering building a relationship with you need to be reassured that you will not waste their time, since they haven’t got enough time to meet the new challenges this fundraising environment brings.