Do you have “ software creep ”?
3 symptoms . 3 prescriptions .
By Boyd Pelley
For most of us , a new year represents an opportunity to identify any potentially harmful habits that have crept into our life and purpose to do something about them . You know , habits like eating , exercising and daily time in the Word . The Bible calls them “ little foxes that spoil the vineyard .”
In the same way , an organization has a way of creeping toward sloppy software habits — many times for good reasons .
For example , we have had one software to help us host videos and another one to manage marketing for many years . Early last year , we found a software that excels at automated webinars . We started using it to learn how to effectively automate our webinars . A few months ago , we realized we could do the same thing by combining features we already have with our video and marketing software . So , last week we built the required landing pages and went from three back to two software applications . ( See the results by clicking the links on
our Webinar page .) It felt like we lost 10 pounds . Software creep happens in churches , too . If you ' re reading this , you might suspect it is happening at your church . But how would you identify it ? Here is a list of symptoms from most to least important to help you diagnose whether or not your church is experiencing software creep .
Same problem , different solutions . Staff are using different software applications to solve the same problems in different ministry areas . Example : Different ministries use Wufu , Formstack , Event Registration , Website forms and Database forms to register people for whatever they are doing . These might not seem like a big deal initially . After all , isn ' t getting things done the goal ? And don ' t you want your team to have autonomy to solve their own problems ? These sound good , but with this approach comes two pretty important problems .
First , your data is now in multiple locations . You probably have one database that you consider the most reliable . If that data is in multiple databases , you have to have a system to make sure the primary database is kept up to date . This issue can be solved , but it isn ' t efficient and requires additional time and expense . Keep it all in one place and get rid of the synchronization system all together . It ' s cleaner and more reliable . Second , your staff has to choose sides . Giving them freedom to use multiple software forces them to choose what to use whenever they need a solution . This creates an unnecessarily competitive environment . Instead of collaborating to master one solution , they are competing to adopt different solutions wasting important staff energy and effectiveness .
Feedback lag . You want feedback on some area of ministry , but the data you need to find the answer has to be extrapolated from more than one source . For instance , you have one data source for your contributions and another one for your groups management . You are curious to find out what difference group involvement makes on giving . The same thing happens with the attendance collected in a check-in system . Or volunteer participation if kept in a separate volunteer scheduling program . To be able to answer questions relating these different aspects of ministry together , you have to pull data from each system into some centralized software to work on it . Again , this can be done ; but to do it , you have to create an entirely new aggregation system . This takes time and resources . If the data is in one place , you might have to work on the reports you want once , but once those are completed and saved , they are ready . With our new report scheduling system , you can even automate when reports are run and to whom they need to be sent . This gets rid of the lag completely .
The purpose of free . If free is a sufficient reason to allow staff to use software , you might have “ software creep .” As you know , free is an important part of every company ' s marketing strategy . The purpose is to help generate revenue in a couple of ways . Free gives you a chance to try out the software for a limited time . This reason for free is an important part of the decision-making process . It gives the potential client an opportunity to try it out .
All of us are hands-on learners to one degree or another . That ' s why Churchteams offers a 30-Day Free Trial . Free sometimes gives you the chance to try out the software with a limited number of people . This purpose of free enables the company to legitimately say they have a greater number of users than just paying clients . This higher number can be an influential factor in others choosing to use the software . It is also an essential part of the strategy of software that relies on donations or an endowment to fund their ongoing development . These higher numbers make the benefit of providing services for smaller churches greater than the cost . Plus , once a larger church gets hooked , the software has proven its value compared to the cost and the church becomes a paying client . If you have software creep or want to avoid it , here is the prescription .
1 ) Use what ' s new . As with the webinar software we used last year , specialized software can help you look at a software solution for a real problem through a different lens . It is worth the learning to give it a try . But recognize that fully adopting it has the unintended consequences mentioned above .
6 CHURCH EXECUTIVE