Matching Processes to Technology
I’m up to my neck in process right now. I’ve spent 6 hours talking with a customer about how they work. Donor management, membership, volunteer trips, a film festival, and retail sales. They work with govenment agencies, other nonprofits, grant makers, and corporate sponsors. Needless to say I’m a bit overwhelmed.
What I’m trying to do is take in all they can tell me about what they do, ask as many questions as possible to elicit more information, and capture all the detail. After I’ve sucked the life out of them, I take all that info home for analysis.
Analysis consists of taking those processes and figuring out the best way to support them with technology, in this case Salesforce.com. What data tables do I have to work with? How can I string them together into a workflow that matches how the customer works? Where can a little bit of custom code get around holes in the technology support of the process?
It’s mind-numbing, and also really fun. It’s all about understanding two sets of constraints, the customer’s needs and the technology’s limitations, and bringing those together in a good design. Like doing a 3 dimensional puzzle…
In the next couple days I’ll share some work I did today to get Salesforce.com to support volunteer events, in this case land cleanup. I’m pretty psyched because it’s coming together pretty tightly.
