Challenges to implementing highly effective ICT-enabled development initiatives
The “12 Habits of Highly Effective ICT-Enabled Development Initiatives” is a set of best practices and guidelines for information technology-related development projects originally published by bridges.org, which I think is essential reading for anyone getting into this work. In our own work, we try to emulate all of these habits. Our five-step HRIS strengthening process, for example, embodies several of them.
However, even though these 12 “habits” are goals that we constantly strive to meet, we face some enormous challenges. IT-related development projects require more human resources than traditional development projects. These are typically multi-year projects that call for a mix of skills, often including data entry, data collection, data quality, group facilitation, training, project management, software development, system administration, documentation, translation and data analysis, to name a few. Developing these skills locally so that the systems can be sustained after the projects end requires a strong investment in training, in particular. We all know that just dropping in a new IT system and expecting people to begin using it and maintaining it immediately is not realistic.
Often, these projects require more time to demonstrate concrete results than traditional development efforts. Habit #6 is one that I strongly agree with for every IT project: “Set concrete goals and take small, achieveable steps; be realistic about outputs and timelines.” Anyone who has been involved in an IT project knows how easy it is to set yourself up for failure by promising too much in too little time or succumbing to “feature creep.” A solid technology project requires planning, incremental implementation to ensure acceptance and make training easier, gradual infrastructure strengthening to support the improvements and flexibility to adapt to changing needs. However, when the need is great, relief is wanted immediately. Demanding a rapid solution can derail a good plan, but we also can’t be so wedded to the plan that we can’t adapt as we learn more about the specific context and needs for the project.
Habits #1 and #12 both address learning from what others have done and distributing information on what we are doing even as initiatives are ongoing. It is vital that we all learn from one another and build on our successes. By adopting an Open Source approach for our projects — not just our software licenses — we are recognizing the importance of community contributions to create successful systems. The purpose of this blog is to share what we learn, including the mistakes we make, and invite everyone’s input to contribute to our growing knowledge base. We hope as you read more about our initiatives that you will join in.
Its interesting to me that that article never talks about standards. While they don’t get into technology specifics (for good reason), it does seem that many points they make (especially nos. 7 & 11) speak directly to ensuring that standards are used. Without standard technology formats the sustainability of a project is immediately thrown into question - without standards there can be no “technology neutral” approach. A “neutral platform” ensures those ideas, and many, many more.
Posted by David Mason on 10/9 at 11:35 am