Constituent expectations have grown exponentially the past few years. A nonprofit’s donors, volunteers, partners and staff compare their systems experience with the multi-billion-dollar eCommerce companies they use every day to search for information or buy goods and services. An organization must somehow meet this challenge – to provide sophisticated systems – on fractions of budgets.

In this post, we will consider the three pillars upon which ownership and operation of a complex system must rely. Beyond responding to inbound support, an organization must proactively work to ensure stable operations. To meet ever-changing needs, an organization must be positioned for continuous growth and enhancements.

 

1. Effective Support of Complex Systems

Reactive support is perhaps the most obvious pillar and the one that receives the most resources and attention. If something breaks, a process must be in place to quickly respond to the issue. Inbound tickets must be received, triaged and resolved. Complex systems often require escalation and coordination of resolution among a group of partners.

An effective support process captures inbound tickets with sufficient detail and clarity to allow for fast triage – or separation – of critical issues from the pack. Critical issues need a clear escalation path to ensure they are given the attention and resources required for immediate resolution. And, as is especially true with integrated systems, issues requiring multiple applications and partners must have a clear means for bringing all parties together for end-to-end solutions.

2. Ongoing Operations Ensure Stability

Proactive efforts to ensure the operational integrity of systems, due to the seeming lack of urgency, can often take a backseat to the triage of inbound support tickets. It is difficult to resource efforts that prevent possible problems when known problems need tending to. But, that is exactly where organizations should be investing their efforts.

Time invested in environment and release management will prevent inbound tickets and safeguard your production business applications. Data integrity efforts improve reports and analytics and therefore translate to better strategy. Ongoing attention to how the systems are administered will ensure that information is secured. And an effective change control process will ensure a clear record of changes and testing will mitigate risks.

3. Being a Growth Organization

An organization’s systems must be positioned for continuous growth and enhancement to respond to ever-changing demands of its constituents. This is not simply about being able to deliver projects, though that is certainly important. A growth organization can identify and prioritize efforts – through enterprise reports and analytics – to successfully “govern” the system. Once approved, an enhancement must have a vehicle that will ensure its timely delivery. And, as part of delivery, the enhancements must integrate into the organization’s body of knowledge to ensure end-users can fully adopt the outcomes.

Summary + Conclusions

Support, operations and growth are the three pillars of systems ownership. An organization must effectively react to inbound support needs while simultaneously and proactively maintain operations to prevent downstream issues. They must prepare for growth by identifying the most import enhancements, delivering them, and ensuring the organization can successfully adopt them.