I recently joined an agency where staff are overloaded, and people who approach us for services are told there will be a four-month wait for a first appointment. But some people have been on the waiting list for over a...
Introduction Lola went to a party last week. Besides being the first free time she had since starting her database development initiative, it was a party to celebrate the launch of the project! After a number of months of very...
Introduction It is increasingly common for funders to request a project evaluation. They want to know that they got some bang for their buck. This is especially true in the not-for-profit and public sectors, where the budget is tight. Lola...
Introduction Lola arrived late for our dinner meeting. She was flustered as she whirled into the restaurant. She had made the critical mistake of answering her telephone just before leaving the office. The person on the other end of the...
I am a program manager, delivering human service programs in my region. I have been told to do something that feels all wrong. I can't break confidentiality to tell you what it is. I went through our code of conduct...
Introduction The previous article discussed the reasons for scope change and how to recognize when changes may be on the horizon. The key question that it did not address is "how". How does the team manage change? This article revisits...
Many academics and government experts are exhorting community developers, practitioners, and private sector managers to partner and collaborate. Although some inter-organizational systems, such as industry councils, have been around for many years, few primers exist as to how to do...
Here's a pop quiz. What is the definition of pro bono? Is it: (a) services performed at no charge? or (b) for the public good? We've come to think of pro bono as a synonym for "free" or "no charge",...
Introduction Lola began her project to develop a donor database about eight months ago. When she started the project, the database was to include only people who had donated to the agency. However, the programmer recently put in functionalities related...
Introduction Many concepts presented here build on a previous article by the same author. Read "Bad things that can happen to good people: Identifying project risks" for some more background. As Lola sat down in the café where I was...
