01962 854971
Become a member

Login
  • About
    • Who we are
    • Team
    • Trustees
  • What we do
    • Guiding and representing you
    • Training and development support
    • Research and engagement expertise
    • Social enterprise expertise
    • Community buildings expertise
    • Policy and information sharing
    • Hampshire Homes Hub – community housing expertise
    • Jobs & Volunteering
    • Room & Desk Hire
    • Projects
  • Case Studies
  • News
    • News, Blogs & Events
  • Contact
  • Become a member

Blogs

Home / News, Blogs & Events / Blogs / Time for a digital spring clean?

Filter by:

  • What we do
  • Blog
  • Events
  • Information

Time for a digital spring clean?

This sounds a lot fancier than what it actually is!

This week I was introduced to the idea of a ‘System Ecosystem’. It’s a pretty simple idea, but could be very useful to you and a good starting point for tidying up how you do things and streamlining your processes. Perhaps this doesn’t sound all too exciting to you, but hear me out…!

System Ecosystems start with you listing and mapping out all the digital tools, processes and outputs that occur within your organisation.

These are split into three types:
  • Internal organisation and communication – these are programmes/tools that you use in your work or to communicate with your colleagues e.g. MS Teams, Salesforce, Whatsapp
  • Client facing – programmes that you engage with your users on e.g. WordPress, Eventbrite, social media accounts
  • Product orientated – programmes that you use to create outputs that you share with your users e.g. Adobe, Canva, Survey Monkey

From the map you can begin to identify key areas where there are bottlenecks (areas of limited capacity), pain points or even tools you’d like to implement. This gives an indication of areas that need a more detailed review and potentially where staff can be trained in order to address inefficiencies or reduce the strain on a team/colleague.

Here’s a first draft of ours:

You can watch this video if you’d like a more detailed explanation.

If you’re interested in giving it go, I would recommend doing it with others in your team or chatting about it with a friend to get another perspective.

Whilst everyone in the group was focusing on their own organisations, we were also all able to see what each other had put. This helped prompt ideas I hadn’t thought of and make connections I hadn’t seen. You can also ask yourself questions like – are there areas of work that are being duplicated? Is there one single point of failure? There are multiple communication tools, is there a reason for that, or could this be reduced to one?

This task might sound as appealing as a ‘deep-clean’, but as Doug from WAO said to us: “The difference between good organisations and AWESOME organisations are their processes.”

Probably worth it then, right?

For me, this activity highlighted the importance of reflection.

We are now a few weeks into the Catalyst definition programme – I have learnt some really cools things (stakeholder mapping, personas, open-source working – see previous blogs below) and we’ve covered a lot. It was useful to spend some time looking back at what we had done, the outputs we had created (or needed to catch up on!!) and what this means for our overall project.

I’ve particularly found that writing blogs has been extremely useful for an end of week ‘cleanse’ to organise my thoughts. I gain a deeper understanding of what I have learnt, which has given me the confidence to share this with others and enabled better decision making.

 

Links to previous blogs

Week 1 – Digital journey? What do you meeean!?
Week 2 –  ‘People, people, people’

Share this page

Author
Helena Kondziela

Published
8.03.21

Contact us

15.04.21
Blogs
All you need to know to get you started with your content planning!
View Blogs
17.03.21
Blogs
“Two steps forward, one step back”
View Blogs
01.03.21
Blogs
‘People, people, people’
View Blogs
22.02.21
Blogs
Digital journey? What do you meeean!?
View Blogs

Newsletter sign up

By signing up to this mailing list you are consenting to receive our bulletin which contains latest news, topics from our online forum and promotes our member of the month. This information is sent out on the 1st and 15th of every month.

  • Pamber parish council were really pleased with the support provided by Action Hampshire’s Rural Housing Enabler helping us through the development process. It was a good experience.

    Chris Goss, Pamber Parish Council
  • Action Hampshire has always been a useful font of information for us at Winchester Churches Nightshelter. Sue has always been really helpful, and I do find the updates from the ‘wider’ world to be of interest.

    Michèle Price, Winchester Churches Nightshelter
  • Having Action Hampshire as a point of reference, support and guidance is invaluable for small to medium sized charities like ourselves. Without them, we would be far less connected and less able to serve our beneficiaries in a meaningful and coordinated way.

    Juno Hollyhock, The Rose Road Association
  • I have found Action Hampshire to be truly innovative and forward thinking in their approach to their work and their passion for the voluntary and community sector is easily measured through their work to help improve the lives of all sections of the community.

    Grant Cornwell, Hampshire & Isle of Wight Community Foundation
  • Action Hampshire are the most fantastic organisation and it has been a pleasure to collaborate with them. They are very positive and easy to work with, from Rachel’s warmth on the front desk all the way up to Sue’s vast knowledge and experience on the top floor.

    George Scott-Welsh, IncuHive

Become a member

Everything we do at Action Hampshire is in support of our amazing members. Join us today and access a membership package to suit your organisation, tailored to meet your needs and the needs of the people and communities you serve.

Become a member

Sign up to our newsletter

Find out what's happening at Action Hampshire
and how you can get involved

Sign up

Find us

Westgate Chambers
Staple Gardens
Winchester
Hampshire
SO23 8SR

01962 854971

Get directions

Quick links

  • Membership sign up
  • What we offer
  • Contact us

Site

  • Site map
  • Privacy policy
  • Accessibility
  • Terms of use
  • Terms of business for membership

© Copyright 2021 Community Action Hampshire

Community Action Hampshire (trading as Action Hampshire and Action Portsmouth) is registered in England and Wales as a charity (no. 1053806) and a company limited by guarantee (no. 3162873)