My New Year's Wish for LDSTech
Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2012 7:34 am
So it's March already - a little late for a New Year's wish - but since the High Council speaker just spoke on goal setting (January's assignment) a couple weeks ago, I think it still counts...
After being a STS for almost a year, and being in ward/stake administration for even longer, here is what I consider the biggest problem facing Technology Specialists in the church: There is a really large disconnect between Church HQ, LDSTech, and Facilities Management on "policy" as it relates to technology.
There seems to be three different sources of "policy":
1. a small library of "official" policies that come out on church letterhead/handbooks through priesthood chains,
2. "accepted" policies that exist on the Tech wiki (which are more dynamic and seem to reflect the changing nature of technologies as we adopt them)
3. the "local" policies of different FM groups. The most inconsistent of them all, many of the local FM groups make up policy as they go along to justify decisions they have to make for budget purposes.
What results from these 3 different sources of "policy" is a very inconsistent approach to anything new that comes out of LDSTech. I've experience FM offering obscure, old church policies (or creating their own local policy) to justify not spending more money, even though it's clearly a technology being made available by LDSTech and is being request by Stake and Area presidents.
Another example: on the basic rollout of Church firewall and broadband access - the church made a "policy" statement that buildings should have broadband and must use the church firewall device, LDSTech provides guidance on what class of broadband would be best and the device choices for a firewall (supporting and offering legacy devices as well as new devices), but FM decides when they get purchased and how much is ultimately spent on broadband connectivity. So - in the implementation - even though LDSTech maybe be enabling awesome new technologies like personal video conferencing, the FM groups have no policy or motivation to provide adequate bandwidth to support these applications. They look at 'minimum' requirements for MLS transfers and think - that should be enough. So there's a real disconnect happening there.
Crazy as it sounds, I see the solution as being a more centralized model for budgeting and procurement. What if equipment were orderable by STS's directly from GSC/CHQ at no cost to the unit (the church rolls up all its equipment expenses centrally). Since the GSC is already supporting the unit, they will know best when a firewall or AP needs replacement or upgrade, rather than (after a lengthy session of troubleshooting) telling you "good luck" as they instruct you to go talk to your FM.
Really, this model would apply to all equipment expenses that are over a few hundred dollars; computers, projectors, network infrastructure. Then, old technology could be sunset quicker rather than waiting for a 'good' budget year from an FM perspective.
Cheaper/expendable items should still be funded by local stake funds (as we do today - I don't want to order a $30 cable through the mail that I can just pick up at my local store).
Frustration with these multiple sources of policy and unevenness of budget application has been exposed over and over in this forum. Any other thoughts/proposals on how we could streamline this?
After being a STS for almost a year, and being in ward/stake administration for even longer, here is what I consider the biggest problem facing Technology Specialists in the church: There is a really large disconnect between Church HQ, LDSTech, and Facilities Management on "policy" as it relates to technology.
There seems to be three different sources of "policy":
1. a small library of "official" policies that come out on church letterhead/handbooks through priesthood chains,
2. "accepted" policies that exist on the Tech wiki (which are more dynamic and seem to reflect the changing nature of technologies as we adopt them)
3. the "local" policies of different FM groups. The most inconsistent of them all, many of the local FM groups make up policy as they go along to justify decisions they have to make for budget purposes.
What results from these 3 different sources of "policy" is a very inconsistent approach to anything new that comes out of LDSTech. I've experience FM offering obscure, old church policies (or creating their own local policy) to justify not spending more money, even though it's clearly a technology being made available by LDSTech and is being request by Stake and Area presidents.
Another example: on the basic rollout of Church firewall and broadband access - the church made a "policy" statement that buildings should have broadband and must use the church firewall device, LDSTech provides guidance on what class of broadband would be best and the device choices for a firewall (supporting and offering legacy devices as well as new devices), but FM decides when they get purchased and how much is ultimately spent on broadband connectivity. So - in the implementation - even though LDSTech maybe be enabling awesome new technologies like personal video conferencing, the FM groups have no policy or motivation to provide adequate bandwidth to support these applications. They look at 'minimum' requirements for MLS transfers and think - that should be enough. So there's a real disconnect happening there.
Crazy as it sounds, I see the solution as being a more centralized model for budgeting and procurement. What if equipment were orderable by STS's directly from GSC/CHQ at no cost to the unit (the church rolls up all its equipment expenses centrally). Since the GSC is already supporting the unit, they will know best when a firewall or AP needs replacement or upgrade, rather than (after a lengthy session of troubleshooting) telling you "good luck" as they instruct you to go talk to your FM.
Really, this model would apply to all equipment expenses that are over a few hundred dollars; computers, projectors, network infrastructure. Then, old technology could be sunset quicker rather than waiting for a 'good' budget year from an FM perspective.
Cheaper/expendable items should still be funded by local stake funds (as we do today - I don't want to order a $30 cable through the mail that I can just pick up at my local store).
Frustration with these multiple sources of policy and unevenness of budget application has been exposed over and over in this forum. Any other thoughts/proposals on how we could streamline this?