School boards still missing the boat on best practices

For every best practice there is also usually a bad one. In the last article I focused on how school boards were "pulling out all the stops" to maintain as effective a support for technology in education as possible. Unfortunately some are less successful than others. The following are examples of other practices that can threaten the success of a school district.

- Buying "lower cost" computers to save budget dollars. In a recent request to Gartner Group regarding recommendations on Celeron-based computers for schools, the response was that many corporations were still not purchasing them for key business use. Even though the technology was sound, there was a concern regarding the life expectancy of the systems in extended business use. It was suggested that a three-year useful life was probably reasonable, but not five. Most school boards use a five-to-seven year replacement cycle; buying this type of technology may prove to be more expensive and more disruptive to continuity of instructional services in the long run.

- Big Bang purchasing models. Public funding typically comes as "one time" initiatives. We tend to make large single purchases and then roll them out to schools and offices as time permits. In many cases this results in warehousing of products until they are out of date. They often have to be upgraded or reimaged with new software and, in almost all cases, are valued at more than they are worth at the time of installation. The most effective purchases are the ones where installation can be supported by the Board while guaranteeing price and technical currency. Without these arrangements the real cost of the technology becomes significantly higher and the customer is left feeling that they are receiving second class products at inflated prices.

- Selecting last year's proven product instead of this year's best solution. With the Internet and e-business solutions rate of change estimated to be seven times that of regular business cycles, buying last year's best computer solution may not be as valuable as it looks. If we must network our systems and the network is Internet-based, then our applications need to be Web-enabled. Mobility and flexibility of the workforce and student population is growing at an unprecedented rate. There is no question that new sources of information and applications must be available over the Web.

- Underestimating the IT costs of e-business. As we rush to the Internet and electronic business services, we need to understand the costs to support our existence there. E-business solutions use unpredictable amounts of processing and communications power requiring significantly more peak capacity then traditional systems. They are expected to remain as dynamic and applicable in their services as the day they were first introduced. These two factors alone mean the direct costs to maintain an e-business capability is going to be higher than traditional technology services. In return the benefits and savings to the overall organization should also be significantly higher.

- Rolling out new technology without the necessary training and support. Moving at a rate of change faster than anything we have ever experienced before is difficult enough. But doing it without the necessary support and training is a recipe for disaster. Many organizations have planned and executed flawless technology implementations only to find that their clients' ability to run them did not exist and there was no mechanism in the original design to ensure that the change management, coaching, training and operational support was available to complete the process. If there is no money allocated for training and support, don't start the project. Redefine it with less penetration and ensure proper training and support are available.

Unfortunately, the best practices described in the last article and the worst practices described here are both being implemented across North America. In most cases the worst appear when organizations are forced to move faster than they are able to. One of the most effective ways to manage this dilemma is to take advantage of the experiences of others, sharing information on both their successes and their failures.

Copyright Plesman Publications Ltd. Jun 2000
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved