How to prep your team to move to a new database
CRM. Databases. Data collection. These don’t tend to be words that fill frontline teams with joy. We’ve all been in that place, as a charity where data is stored all over the place, emails, word documents, filing cabinets, spreadsheets and mostly: people’s heads.
So what happens when your charity wants to move to a new way of working? See a single version of the truth? Collect data in easier and more streamlined ways? You’ll be looking for a database that can solve all these problems and do so much more. So how do we ensure that these words full your frontline team with excitement and joy, rather than dread and fear?
Depending on which stage of the journey you’re at, you’ll need to approach things differently.
A. You’re just starting to think about moving to a cloud-based system
Fantastic, this is the most effective time to get your teams involved and create a buzz! Here are some tips to help you get there:
Ask questions and listen.
Your teams will be so busy doing an amazing job that they may not have stopped to think what their needs are. Asking questions can help them understand what their current needs are and how a new database could help. Ask questions like:
“What are the tasks you do on a daily basis that take lots of time?”
“What did you wish you knew that other team members have ownership of that would help you in your role?”
“What insight about your service users you’ve always wanted to know that can help us improve our services to them?”
“What do you want to be doing less of and what do you want to be doing more of in your role?”
“What systems have you used in other roles in other organisations that helped you do your job more effectively?
These questions will help them to see that things could be improved, they will also help you when you’re researching systems to keep their needs in mind.
Get everyone together
A collective understanding of what’s happening amongst your team is the best way to get insight from your team about what they find difficult and what could be improved from using a CRM system. Understanding everyone’s needs, helping them voice their current frustrations will help the team as individuals, and a collective feel heard and their opinions valued.
Send some short snippets of systems around
Get people excited about moving to a new database by giving them a sneak peak of what’s to come. Send Youtube videos like this one to show what a database system can do; encourage them to attend a demonstration of the system. Sometimes the best way to understand what you need is to see what you’re missing, so showing off a new system can help.
Gather case studies.
Speak to charities who are in a similar position to you who are using a database. Ask them to share their stories of how using a database system has changed their team’s way of working and share this with your own team. Share case studies of how databases have changed things by people who are using systems you are considering. Show your team how a new way of working will be a great thing.
B. You’ve started gathering requirements for what you’re looking for in a new system
Fab! This is a great time to get your team involved. Not only will this help you ensure you’ve got all their needs covered in a new system, but it'll also help them feel bought into the process of moving away from the spreadsheets.
Work with your team to feed their needs into your requirements gathering. Use questions like the above (listed in part A) to help them think through their needs and translate these into requirements. Hearing their voices is your best chance of success.
C. You’re researching systems in depth.
Amazing. Get your team involved in this process as much as possible. Invite them along to demonstrations of the system. Encourage them to come armed with ‘used cases’ of what they do currently to see how it can be done with the database. Once they’ve seen these systems, come back together as a team to make a decision TOGETHER. Ensure that everyone who will be using it plays a part in making the decision. They will feel more empowered and therefore more likely to use the system.
D. You’ve chosen the system and are starting to implement it.
It’s not too late to get your team involved if you haven’t done so already! As you’re going through the implementation process with your new provider, get key players involved in the design of your new system. Take on their feedback to ensure it’s configured to their needs. This is the first part of yours and their training too, so it’ll give you a headstart if they’re familiar with the product and know how it will be configured. If they didn’t attend the original demonstrations, send them links to Youtube demonstrations of the database so they can see what they’ll be working with.
Ensure that everyone who will be using it plays a part in making the decision. They will feel more empowered and therefore more likely to use the system.
E. The system is implemented
Two things will help your team at this stage:
Training training training. If your team weren’t that involved in the early stages, it’s best to invest as much as possible in good quality training for the team so they know how, when and why to use the new database.
Reporting. When you start with a new database, you’ll likely import a history of your data into the system. Use this to create some reporting dashboards for the team that will help them make decisions. They’ll likely see answers to questions they’ve always wanted to know about their service users and get inspired to use the system and, in turn, record better data in future.
Let us know if you have any more tips to add to this list. As you can see, it’s never too late to get your team involved. If you want to learn more about how we’ve helped charities move away from disjointed working to streamlined, impactful data collection you can book a chat in with the team today.