Techsoup leading the challenge of reducing NPO support requirements

Don

Great topic to introduce. I have thought about this but hadn't seen the statistics on the changing ratios.

Here are a few of my observations from my involvement with NPO's over the last three years after leaving a fortune 500 computer and consulting company.

1. Many NPO's have a PC count under 100 PC's. The management tools that I knew about weren’t cost effective to implement in networks under 300 PC's. With out a effective tool that can be inexpensively purchased and implemented easily for small networks there is no economy of scale for PC management. (I'm talking SMS, Unicenter, Openview style management with PC plug-ins for control of patch management, inventory, and software installation, in addition to network management.

2. In an environment that is understaffed for technology, much time is spent in triage and hardware / software repair instead of implementing new technology. Often supporting old to very old hardware doesn't bring in the option of latest improvements in new hardware and software. (We won't consider new PCs for these departments because they don't need new equipment for the limited use and need for the technology there, so we keep the 100MHZ PC and the 486 because they don’t need any better )

3. We won't fund the full implementation to get to a better level. (We'll buy the new server but we won't upgrade MS Office so all users have the same level, we will keep 3 versions of Windows too, since those users don't need new (see number 2) and why would we need to replace our Arcnet coax that was installed 12 years ago)

4. I'd almost wager the 1:100 ratio is in a shop of at least 1000 PC's. Does the 1:100 include help desk personnel, trainers, and other ancillary areas? Are they counting in the ratio the jack of all trades the techie in NPOs have to be. PBX expert, Network expert, Router expert, Internet expert, Email expert, adhoc trainer, MS Office expert, Application expert and trainer, PC expert, CFO, business manager ...

5. Will the NPO make the investment in time and money to provide adequate user training? I've literally sat down to show a user how to import delimited text into Excel, and started teaching from the point of "go to file open and select file of type" and been told to slow down, when I looked at the notes the user was taking they were still writing Start >> Programs >> Microsoft Office >> Excel.

6. Will the NPO adopt radical different approaches such as Terminal server and thin client?

7. Has the NPO been introduced to service providers that really know what they are doing? I'm fixing my Active Directory problems that the original installer created by scrapping the whole domain and starting over. This again could be caused by funding issues, or bad management in that the provider was pulled from their original scope of work to "fix or teach" in other areas that prevented them from properly completing their origional project.

8. Uncontrolled drive by's. Where the technician can't go to complete a task or project with out being ambushed with six other user’s problems on their way to the first task. (no help desk or trouble ticket system for the small environment)

9. If PC replacement is done on a 1 to 2 PC at a time instead of blocks of 15 or 20 PC’s. Gold images and cloning are not practical unless you have enough PCs to spread the cost over.. Each new PC takes about 4 hours to update and load software, so much time is lost by saving money by only buying 1 to 2 PC's at a time.


Dave

Hi Dave and thanks for a terrific contribution.

I can’t speak on the data used for analysis, although my experience completing surveys for the Bureau of Statistics etc. would suggest a cut-off point of 500 computers. I.e. only larger NPO’s and businesses would typically be surveyed.

So I guess the question is: “Does this ratio also reflect the reality of smaller NPO’s and businesses?”

May I suggest the answer is ‘yes’. Through my work I deal with many small businesses (20-100 computers) and few have any real IT support issues. Conversely, the NPO’s of a similar size that I work with will often cite horror stories about major computer failures and malfunctions and always seem to require IT support at some level or another. I think we are also seeing this trend develop here on TechSoup. Many of the questions asked are unlikely to be asked by those providing IT support for a Law Firm, Real Estate Office or other mid to small business.

Can I suggest another observation to add to your list? - many NPO’s are ‘early adopters’ of beta or otherwise untested or underdeveloped technologies (this is not something we typically see in small to mid-size business). Often the reason for this is simple economics in the NPO cannot afford a commercial product so opt for an untested freebie. Doing this might save a few dollars upfront, but the downside is usually an enormous increase in support requirements resulting from the use of untested and unsupported software.

This is one area where I think TechSoup is making fantastic inroads by offering business quality software at an affordable price. NPO’s really don’t need to experiment when commercial quality and supported software is obtainable for most business applications.

But there is still a heck of a long way to go…

Best regards, Don

Hi Dave & Don,

Great topic and some very insightful comments!

I'd also like to throw another thought into the mix.

Another reason that many NPO's may need more "hand holding" on technology issues is that many of the staff and managers are just now catching up to their for-profit counterparts in understanding technology issues. Some are "old school" and are afraid to adopt new methods others just don't like technology. Some of us "oldsters" were lucky and caught the technology "bug" when PC's first rolled out but many folks were not in that first wave and have been struggling to catch up ever since.

By contrast many business folks had to catch on quick to the technology wave or risk losing customers, market share, etc.

Another possible explanation is that for-profits tend to recruit younger folks who have grown up in the "technology world" and are less likely to need help with routine tech. problems. Of course, the other side of this coin is that these same folks are more likely to cause problems by "fiddling" with their computer settings, networks, etc.....probably why companies spend lots of money to "lock down" their systems.

Just some thoughts based on my short experiences working with some small NPO's.

Dom Gieras
www.cdntap.org

Hi Dom,

(This is a great new forum – we really haven’t had anywhere to discuss these issues previously as threads like this always seemed ‘off-topic’… again congratulations to TechSoup!).

Considering your thoughts, do you think some NPO managers still have a degree of technophobia when it comes to implementing IT procedures and processes? – Maybe there exists a fear of ‘handing over control’ when a consultant or staffer suggests a need for an IT plan or improved IT management processes? (Such as locking administrative access to workstations or developing a 3-year computer replacement plan etc.?).

The culture of many NPO’s is ‘free and open’ and this can seem at odds to IT best practice, because often best practice is to remove certain liberties from our more experimental computer users... yet rarely if ever does this have anything to do with ‘control’, it’s about protecting the organizational investment in exactly the same way organizations protect all their investments.

Education is obviously part of this, but maybe some people just need to ‘walk the walk’ of experiencing major computer failures and downtime before acknowledging the need for better planning and controls – Do you think that publishing some of our more extreme computer failure ‘horror stories’ would help raise awareness?

Rgds, Don

Don and Dom

The education in moving away from free and open is an area that we could spend some effort on. I've had to internally deal with our upper management and administrative rights on their computers. I will admit that some of it is control as I had to create culture change that all software has to be licensed and legal. Some other discussion thread talked about assigning two logins one limited one admin, so the "power" users can still feel in control. I can see this working provided the user can be educated in the risks of the admin login.

Don, as you appear to support profit and NPO can you relate some of the differences in IT and culture that reduces the IT overhead? The small business that I was familiar with ~15 PCs and a terminal based application system, survived with a technically proficient controller and about 2 hours a week of my IT support.

In my world I support about 115 PCs by myself, I've avoided major disasters, my biggest problem is project lead time, any projects get stretched out forever in dealing with day to day support. Patch management is number two as I cannot invest the effort to even research automation in this area.

One of the first projects when I started here was to reload all PCs from scratch to create clean installs and standard software loads. This resolved the majority of the problems they were having before I arrived.

As we have grown from a dozen win98 pc's, one of the major improvements was moving to win2000 and winxp, just the user security, limited accounts, and much more stable operating system has solved many potential crisis situations.

We've recruited some younger folks too and even that they have grown up in the "technology world" there is still a lack of the logical problem analysis and resolution. They seem to want one click, make it easy, just tell me what to do, type solutions instead of digging into a help file or take the time to invest in personal training, or even just working through a solution (I'm talking application level here not malfunction troubleshooting).

One other thought on the 1:30 ratio. Do NPOs sometimes throw resources at a problem with out really determining the right resources and the right outcome measurements needed. If there is allot of pressure from users that things are always broken and it takes too long to restore and they can't get the work done, if we throw another technician in we can mask the underlying problem and when the complaining goes away it's out of sight out of mind and in the budget for next year. Once budgeted we never have to look at it again.

I've presented questions about the ROI of a project no one seemed to know what that stood for. Even in the NPO world we should look at things in a cost / benefit / return analysis.

I'm hoping as we share and discuss we can develop some methodologies that work in the small environment and bring about economies and efficiencies in our IT environment.


Jut a few rambling thoughts.
Dave

>> can you relate some of the differences in IT and culture that reduces the IT overhead?

Hi Dave,

In my experience organizational culture always seems to play a large part... and dare I use the 'D' word (discipline) in an NPO context.

Private and Government enterprise are usually well layered; everyone has a job; everyone has and knows their areas of responsibility. A lot of NPO's (certainly not all) lack this type of organization within their structures and IMO this leads to a lot of freelancing, especially when it comes to computers.

Fostering this type of freedom certainly offers benefit to creative types (if not necessarily the organizations they represent); and it always comes at a cost (usually in terms of supporting the individual). Are the gains worth the cost? - Only the directorate of the NPO can answer this question - However it is rare to see the same types of computing freedoms in Govt or industry.

Another aspect we are probably all too familiar with, is the 'little bit of knowledge' syndrome. Most people new to computers experience a growth path that moves from novice, to expert, and back to novice again as they learn enough to understand just how complex these machines really are (and the reason other people spend years at University specializing in how to look after them!).

The best backyard mechanics always end up completing a course of instruction as they learn just how much they really don't know... Do the best NPO administrators and staff do likewise? I have no problem at all getting junior NPO staff to courses of instruction, but getting senior staff to attend is often like pulling teeth - painful in the extreme!

I guess all I am really saying is I don't have the answers...

Cheers, Don

Great topic. As a NPO database manager I am very glad to see this topic discussed. I was recently charged with conducting a technology audit. I recently completed a research for new database technology which prompted the technology audit. The lack of funds is always slowing down our progress. Techsoup has been a great help. I'm currently seeking "free" or very inexpensive software for use in conducting a technology audit. Do you have a resource you would like to suggest?

Thank you,
Vickie Eason
Database Manager
Lutheran Social Services
904/730-2389

Hi Vickie

What is the information you would like to have as a result of your technology audit? How many devices need to be audited?

It could be as simple as a paper form filled out by users or a program run by the user, to a profile and login script creating a completely automatic process or a system management server.

We may want to put this question in the open source or software forum once we know more parameters of what you need.

In line with this thread, I wonder how often a NPO spends money on technology based on a name?

When I was working for a company that sold and installed networks and responed to customer's RFPs (commercial and educational) for new networks there was often a line or a paragraph in the RFP that stated a complete network management system must be included in the network package.

That was the extent of the specifications for Network Management.

When I visited some customers that had network management often times the management PC was in a corner covered with dust and not used because they didn't have a clue how much was involved in a network management system, and they got what they asked for with one paragraph in the RFP.

This scenario in the NPO world would have resulted in spending of money for technology and not able to use it. In the case of network management this would be a tool that could reduce support costs but because of a lack of understanding and training it isn't used.

Dave

I think the user support ratio question is difficult to untangle. You can't say that a high ratio of users to IT staff is either good or bad except in context.

First, it depends on how technology-driven the organization is and what the end-users are trying to accomplish. For instance, surveys have shown that within higher education the ratio of IT staff to end-users (including students, faculty, and staff) ranges from 1:150 to 1:800. The low end of the range is found at research universities, the high end of the range is found at community colleges. Universities are heavy users of technology and generally have higher budgets than community colleges. They're using technology in novel ways, not just for word processing and spreadsheets, so they need more help from techies. They have large campuses as well as resident student populations, so they have heavy networking needs.

In addition, it depends on what kinds of standards are in place and what kind of equipment is use. Businesses (and many universities) tend to standardize on a single manufacturer, OS version, and suite of applications. Nonprofits, as we all know, usually have a mix of computers from a variety of manufacturers using many vintages of operating systems and applications. This equipment is more difficult and expensive to maintain, fails at a higher rate, and requires more staff time to support.

Finally, it's often easier for businesses to work with off-the-shelf software. Nonprofits (and universities) often build their own applications. Sometimes this is an attempt (misguided as it may be) to save money, or a belief the organization's needs are unique, or that the organization needs to control its software down to the source code. But often there simply is no commercial product that will meet the organization's needs.

All this is to say that there's more to this issue than efficiencies of scale, or size of operating budget.

Robert

IMO it all comes down to 2 things. Money and knowledge.

Money for NPOs is always an issue. Instead of spending smoe money to level all the technology out to one standard its usually "So and so needs a new computer" and off they go to buy whatever they can get thier hands on at the time. (Usually a system thats overpriced and/or not what is needed for the job) resulting in a huge mix of systems/programs.

Next the "resident expert" seems to come into play a lot more in the NPO sector. Instead of having a dedicated IT person (see money issues) they tend to rely on "The guy" (or gal) that has some knowledge of computers. Usually they own one at home so they are therefore qualified to be the IT person. This usually results in more issues then it fixes as things are missed or not done at all.

Knowledge. This is what bothers me the most. Tons of NPOs are taken advantage of time and time again since they do not know what is needed for a job. As soon as the "consultant" comes in and see the knowledge level the greed kicks in and they go for the throat (of course not all people do this but it is becoming more common). Since the agency in question is at the mercy of the consultant they are usually layered with all kinds of useless equipment/software and a bill to match it.

I have walked into agencies that were told "You don't need AV protection with this version of "insert OS here" and were constantly being attacked/infected. I have also seen machines built for agencies that contained hardware that is not needed for office work (sorry all office machines do not need DVD R/RW installed) the list goes on and on.

Next would have to be training. For profit folks have the budgets to spend on training. So the average user knows how to use office software/fix minor issues (such as clearing the print buffers etc.) So frontline support is not as in demand. NPOs usually send one person to a class and expect them to repeat everything they learned to all others in the office, of course missing 80% of what was taught.

**Sorry for the ranting** :)

Brian

Great points Robert and Brian (and no need to apologise for the 'rant' Brian, many techs are frustrated they can't do more to help NPO's lower support overheads!).

Robert perhaps a more accurate measure for budgetary purposes (the main context of this thread), is support per PC rather than support per PC user. Many higher-eds do experience the high ratios you cite however not on a support per PC basis. I.e. The high ratio experienced in some Uni's is mostly because many students share workstations with as many as a dozen other students per PC throughout the course of a week. This is really no different to a Telecentre or other public facility where multiple users share a single PC.

I think we get a more accurate picture by measuring the support required per number of PC's - and by this measure most EDU's fall into the plus or minus 1-100 ratio.

In summary of posts above, the following seem to be a few of the generalizations we can apply to NPO's experiencing high support requirements:

1/ A lack of IT management

2/ A fear of change (old-school mindsets leading to increased support requirements because newer technologies are not adopted)

3/ Failure to adopt computer hardware standards

4/ The "Resident Expert" is commonly not an IT professional

5/ A culture that lacks recognition of the need for management policies and protocols (too much freelancing leading to staff implementing adhoc, undocumented or unsupported software solutions)

6/ A preference for inhouse software development

7/ Exploitation (NPO's are sold unnecessary solutions due to a lack of knowledge or processes to develop proper requirements determinations)

8/ Money (or perhaps more accurately, a lack of focus on the need for proper IT budget planning)

Any others?

So what can we do to help?

Don

Hi Don

Glad you started the summary, I’ve been thinking about this but hadn't the time to collect it together.


9/ Training -- User training from the basic PC operation through advanced office software, and even training in the line of business software that is in use. As many NPO employees are stretched in the time resources for their job there is never enough time to train to create better work flow or process.


I like it when a plan comes together, software installs and operates with out a hitch, a hardware rollout proceeds as expected.

Would a set of cook books based on the number of PC's in the NPO that recommend best practices and methodologies?

Some of the open source software I've had the best success with installed simply, operated as expected, and provided usable functionality. Other open source (or commercial software) didn't meet with any of those attributes. Could there be some standard PC configs (documented how to's not starting a hardware business) taking the best of breed from the open source and techstock?

This would include Ozzie's policies for safe Internet, creating a locked down environment, and have the board level discussion explaining the why.

To document an environment there are three levels of documentation Process, Procedure, and Work instructions.

Each level has a different amount of detail with the Process painting the big picture and the Work instructions giving the detail to allow anyone to follow the document and successfully complete the task.

Some of this may already exist in the library here, but doesn't have the glue putting all the pieces in place. And presented in a way that one person can influence and change the course of the ship.

From the techie perspective "when you are up to you hips in alligators it's hard to remember that your original objective was to drain the swamp"

Dave

Dave I like this idea - like it a lot.

I think your are right that TS contains a wealth of information on ways to mitigate the impact of variables leading to high support requirements... but the 'cookbooks' are not all embracing or easily found. People dance from one problem to another, try to find a solution... but sometimes the solution might lead to other problems, or problems are found where they simply can't find a solution...

It seems to me you are suggesting we better collate and organise the information we have so as to provide a generic set of Processes, Procedures and Work instructions (glue it all together).

Well... we can do this (can't we?).

Maybe a good start would be to list all the appropriate references here on TechSoup under the category heading of each identified 'problem area'. Once we have the lists we could compile the documents in each category into a single document and apply summarization processes to produce a generic category-specific 'cookbook'. The last step being to break each 'Cookbook' into Processes, Procedures and Work Instructions.

Worth trying?

Don

Well allot of time and events have elapsed since August. I really didn't want this thread to die, but I wanted to see if others have interest in this prospect before embarking on a documentation project.

Don, are you back from your world travels?

Is there any other interest in the project and cook books?

I had envisioned 3 sets of documentation.
Methodology 1 for non server based 1-5 PCs.
Methodology 2 for 10-50 PCs perhaps SBS based.
Methodology 3 for 75-125 PCs server based.

I would believe when the network is over 100 PCs there would be other involvement and alignment with the commercial world and knowledge.

Dave