ICCM '96 Session Notes

"Collaboration In Mission Information Publishing"

Bill Dickson, Global Mapping International

A management-level overview of what worked and didn’t work in a mission information electronic publishing project - the 20:21 Library of Mission and Evangelism Resources.

20:21 Library: Overview

• Substantially funded by a one-time grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts.
• First 'shot' in a Ready - Fire - Aim strategy.

20:21 Library: Constraints

• Reasonable resources , with a few unreasonable restrictions.
• Absolute, do-or-die two year time frame.
• Fairly loose product specification.

20:21 Library: Product Overview

• ~ 70 text works (including some that started out as databases) (out of about 150 considered)
• 2 statistical databases
• ~ 400 fully editable maps, will fully-functional mapping software

20:21 Library: High Points

• Bibliography of 60,000+ works on mission
• Hypertext of Ethnologue joined with several Peoples Information Network databases.
• Operation World hypertext with all charts and graphs (in color), plus underlying, more detailed statistical database.
• Fully-functional mapping software included with product.

20:21 Library: What Worked - Collaboration

• Paid-up dues: A decade of cooperative peer relationships with major information providers before the project started.
• Clearly-articulated, limited (time, quantity, $) publishing agreement.
• "Kissing Frogs". Only one turn-down; probably lots of pocket vetoes.
• Prayer and Divine Intervention.

20:21 Library: What Worked - Product Assembly

• Internal Ready-Fire-Aim approach
  • Early assembly of working product
  • Near constant LAN availability of best current working product to whole organization.
  • Lots of rounds of internal and external test CD-ROMs
• Maximum Use of well-tested commercial software
  • Folio Views (full word-indexed hypertext)
  • Atlas GIS (mapping)

20:21 Library: What Worked - Team Building

• A small, highly-committed in-house development team.
• Extremely competent outside consultants
  • long track records
  • high personal commitment to overall project
  • high personal commitment to organizational success.

20:21 Library: What Didn’t Work - Funding

• Funding model and schedule didn’t allow replacement of staff attrition.
• Funding model didn’t cover needed software updates.
• Drop-off in staff support at end of project.

20:21 Library: What Didn’t Work - Technology

• Supposedly cross-platform development environments didn’t really work across platforms.
• Unrealism about practical ability to produce and deliver in-house software (approximately half of all software development time went toward efforts dropped from the final product!).

20:21 Library: What Didn’t Work - Technology

• Much incoming material couldn’t be converted adequately without re-creating provider’s environment.
• Holes in early test methodology (multiple testing approaches turned out to be needed).
• uch material produced electronically had not been archived electronically.

20:21 Library: What Didn’t Work - Collaboration

• Failure to anticipate time to get data and signed agreements in hand.
• Failure to stagger deadlines for content delivery: lots of material arrived at (or after) deadlines and had to be left out.

20:21 Library: Lessons

• Invest in (and clearly define) relationships
• Plan for change
  • In personnel
  • In development environment
  • In data
  • In user environment

20:21 Library: Lessons

• Be realistic about your schedule and organizational abilities
  • Test early, often, continuously, and in every way you can think of.
  • Know when (and in what direction) to retreat. If you must retreat, retreat as early as possible.
  • Recognize that everything interacts at the end of the project, so the rate of product change must decline at the end.
• Let God surprise you!