Nonprofit Datafolk Club: Tips for adopting new data tools
Every month, our Nonprofit Datafolk Club gets together to share experiences and learning. It’s a chance for data folk working in or with nonprofits to network and discuss matters of mutual interest.
In February, we got together to discuss ‘Adopting new data tools’. We split into small groups and discussed the questions: How do you know when it's time to adopt a new tool? How can you make sure that everyone in your organisation is on board and ready to use your new tool? How can you ensure a smooth transition and/or migration of data from your existing tools?
How do you know when it's time to adopt a new tool?
The most common flag for knowing it’s time to adopt a new tool is that what you currently use no longer meets the needs of the organisation. This may be due to user feedback (internal or external) that things are not working well enough; limited functionality, so that what you want to do exceeds what the tool can do (e.g. the ability to analyse and monitor); frustration about the clunkiness and time-consuming inefficiency of the tool which may have become outdated; or because you need greater integration between your tools.
What should you consider?
Before deciding to change tools, it was suggested that you should review your processes and reconcile divergent opinions of what is needed in a system, to reach a general agreement. It can be difficult to navigate a requirements analysis as sometimes the end users have widely differing needs, skills or knowledge sets.
You should also consider the end goal at the beginning of the project, as well as:
What security and customer support is available for the tool.
What money and resources you have.
The wider organisational context (if there are lots of other changes happening it can be confusing or overwhelming).
How can you make sure that everyone in your organisation is on board and ready to use your new tool?
The key message in response to this question was ‘Communication!’.
Staff
You should explain why you are changing and give full training on how to get the best out of the new tool – this training should be included in the budget for the tool migration. Training will also help people to be confident instead of worried about using the new tool incorrectly.
It is important to showcase how the new tool will make life better, or how the organisation cannot continue with its current tool. Find champions in your organisation (these can emerge through the user research).
It is important to ensure the new tool works well – if it is intuitive, that’s great, if not then it should have clear instructions (and training) for use. It should work well across different laptops and locations.
Another practical suggestion was to host ‘weekly drop-ins’ for people to ask questions.
In summary:
Involve people from the start.
Ask them what they think.
Respond to user feedback and requests.
Leadership
Leadership buy-in is also important. It can be difficult to get people excited if there’s no senior person owning it and caring about whether it happens. In smaller organisations, sometimes the initiative comes from the top but that person doesn’t have bandwidth to see it through. In this case, you need someone to own the rollout, with a clear mandate from the top.
How can you ensure a smooth transition and/or migration of data from existing tools?
Our datafolk gave a few tips for ensuring a smooth transition between tools.
The first was to make sure your data is clean and tidy. It was noted that your new tool could be more helpful at achieving this, so you may want to strike a balance between how much you do before and after migration. An important part of cleaning up your data is knowing what to let go of, and ensuring you have appropriate retention policies.
User testing is also an important element of the process – it helps you see what is good about the new tool and what may still need work. It also helps you uncover any misconceptions people may have, so that you can tackle these in your communications. You may want to use test data in the system for some of this.
Throughout roll-out, there should be regular reviews of the new tool. It may be a good idea to have some ‘success metrics’ to measure at these reviews.
Finally, you should ensure there is a plan for the implementation – including how you will troubleshoot and fix bugs, and where appropriate responsibilities lie. Having contingency plans, including back-ups of data just in case.
Useful links that were shared in the session:
UK Anonymisation Network – best practice for anonymising data records
About our Nonprofit Datafolk Club
Our Nonprofit Datafolk Club is a friendly group of like-minded data folk working in or with nonprofits. Every month we get together online for a free interactive workshop to share expertise, ask questions and discuss anything data-related.
What’s more, it’s free.
Previous attendees have said:
"What I like most about Nonprofit Datafolk Club is its relaxed and friendly nature."
"The format is good and the topics are always interesting."
"It was useful to speak to people from other organisations to hear what they are doing. Talking about the challenges we're facing here was helpful and I came away with a clearer understanding of our position."
Join the Nonprofit Datafolk Club
If you found this resource interesting, or if you have any curiosity in nonprofit data more generally, please come and join us at our next workshop. Each month has a different topic – you’ll find details on our events page. Previous topics have included:
Data disasters and how to avoid them