Technology Projects and Organisation Culture

Over my years of experience in creating/implementing technology projects for non-profits, i was intrigued by both success and failure of technology projects in NGO's.

Initally I and my team was elated of the success of the projects and it's contribution to the organization innovation and growth. On the personal front comes recognition, promotions, salary raises etc. - i was also was very much disturbed when technology projects didn't take off as resources went waste in a shoe-stringed technology budgets of an NGO and also risking which is primarly donor's money.

Many of the technology projects (particularly software projects) don't take off across all sectors (not only in NGO's). Some statistics of various surveys conducted are there in this link.

Conclusion by IT Cortex
       Technology project is more likely to be unsuccessful than successful
       About 1 out 5 IT projects is likely to bring full satisfaction
       The larger the project the more likely the failure


Many attribute this failure to due to various reasons like Poor Project Management, (Didn't do pareto/water-fall analysis!) Vendor Selection, Technology selection, Scope etc. Don't appoint consultant (particuarly from another company or person who is engaging in developing software) to tell you where your software projects went wrong!

Though i partially agree to some of it mentioned above - i felt during my working experiences that culture of both individuals and organisations - also plays a major role with either success or failures.

I would look at people characteristics such as fairness, collaboration with others, enthusiasm for the job, trust from individuals and organisation characteristics such as risk-taking, information-sharing, compliance, team-work, meticulousness,innvoation at the market place.

If i look back of all my previous success and failures on the above characteristics mentioned, following are some pointers:

High level of only organisation characteristics leads to
More of top-down/autocratic decision making style leads little contribution from individuals or groups. Success/failure rate are high, but information and success/failure are with 'few' individuals. Typical technology projects will be of what's the pressing needs - mostly operations which are tedious and time consuming are implemented, so there could be high level of success rates. Most of the projects will be on time and tested platforms and softwares. Technology projects are owned by functional people or few individuals in IT.

High level of only people characteristics leads to
Participation from individuals are high. Most of the time - technology projects are on a committee basis - typical technology projects involves from cross-functional teams, expert consultants looks at integration aspects between systems. Long projects duration for creation or implementation, Technology transition is invitable. Ownership is neither with technology or functional team! - If there is no considerable organisation characteristics - then the projects will remain only on paper or success/failture will be 50:50.

High Level of characteristics from people as well organisation leads to
Ideally, the project will be co-owned by both function and IT where high levels of maturity would be seen. Maturity on both functional and technology design will be seen. There will be functional and technology champions. Both success and failures will be shared jointly. Some of the characteristics of both people and organisation will manifest are:
    People Characteristic - Inter-dependence and Trust
    Organisation Characteristic - Team-orientation, flexibility, documenting information flow

What could be attributes of software failures in terms of culture?
     People Characteristic - Indepedent and mis-trust
     Organisation Characteristic - Lack of Co-hesion, information which is closely held and lack of risk-taking

If you have created/implemented technology projects in an NGO and experienced it - could you share what are the learnings from both - success and failures of technology projects?

Building Websites for NGO's or Non-Profits.. Part 2..

Myself and some of my friends felt it lengthy of last post - will try to be brief in this:
The most important page in the website is the home page. It's like entering a restaurant or house or an office - first view or impression is the best..Even though flash websites or flash introduction is catchy - would advice to avoid it. People don't have patience to watch your beautiful flash sites. If you are still want to use - at least have Skip Intro button placed.
Some of the tips for home page before you design one (either by in-house designer or your advertising agency or others):
Read this http://www.optimizeandprophesize.com/jonathan_mendezs_blog/2007/02/7_rules_for_lan.html
1. Have your organisation Logo displayed prominently and linked to your home page.Tell briefly not more than 5-6 lines about your organisation. If you can't say - then have 5-6 lines and put more link and take them to another page. Make sure that your organisation branding is consistent for both offline and online world.
2. Some things people look for on the Home page of NGO's :
a.What is the problem/issue?
b.How are you addressing it?
c.Success stories (audio/visual will be better) and then call to action button like donate/shop/volunteer button
d.Trust that my resources (money/time) will be used effectively- Annual Reports with Financials, How much of per rupee goes into addressing the problem
2. Don't clutter home page. Make sure that home pages changes (content or images or what's new) at least once in 10 days at least!
3. Have quick links or jump start. Also have Site map displayed with links. Have always links (breadcrumb)/navigation on all inside pages
4. Search button preferably on the right top or middle (people who wants to look for specific information will search). Don't buy or write codes for these. Use Google custom search for free. Put few lines of code given by google on your pages.
5.Make sure that your home page is loaded within 10 seconds. One of the psychology of people who visits websites - which i want you to remember - is time. As it's an age of instant gratification and if they don't find in an minute or two - people will close and move of out your home page. Then you will be wondering like what one of our friends said 'They are coming to the bar and not drinking!'
6. Have contact us probably on top right and have the address, phone number, email id. Don't put forms to fill it up - it kills the user. Put a generic email id which may be spammed (you can also put email id as image to avoid spamming of email id), but users can't click the email id link and write. Make sure that email box is opened daily and checked for follow-up.
7. Use words in key-words or content which are understandable by common people who visit your website and not development or ngo jargon (people still call charity not a rights based advocacy organisation)!
8. Make sure that each page has Page Header on top of the browser. Very important for both search engines and for search within the site.
9. All Images have proper names and tags and are also relevant. Make sure that images and not cut into 2 half and in-between inserting text is a bad idea. When downloading a page - you get bottom image and text and then the top image.
10.Have what's new or latest updates..
We will look at Donate/Shop page another time in this blog..