Everything works, until it doesn’t. “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” – Stein’s Law I was talking with a client recently and we were discussing how certain pieces of their system that had once worked well, no longer seem to work well, if at all. I replied: “Everything works, until it doesn’t.” The […]

Some things are unknowable One of the most challenging aspects of moving to a new system and vendor is “not knowing.” There are some questions that just aren’t answerable in the moment. Here are some examples of questions my clients will ask that are really unknowable: “How much work will staff have to do during implementation?” Vendors […]

Do we have access to that data? When I work with my clients on a data management projects, there are frequently conversations about querying and reporting on data. I’ll hear things like “We want to query for people who have attended previous meetings and are also volunteers, but we’re not able to pull that information.” […]

The three “buckets” of contact data Broadly speaking, when collecting data on contacts (individuals or organizations), there are three “buckets” of data being collected: Contact information (name, address, phone, email) Transactional information (stuff they’ve purchased) Demographic data (information about the individual or organization, e.g., lines of business, areas of interest, professional status, etc.). Of these three, the most […]

Balancing what is possible with what is realistic When I work with clients on technology projects, I’ll tell them “These are blue sky discussions. Nothing is off the table.” I’ll usually follow that up with “But just because we discuss something doesn’t mean you’ll actually get that something.” Because even if what is being discussed […]