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Re: Lesson Schedules Discountinued 2017
Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2017 4:16 am
by dpicken
eblood66 wrote:
And then there's the cost issue. If 750 units were using it and it takes each of them an extra hour to accomplish the task in a different way, that's 750 hours church members waste on administrative tasks because we can't use IT solutions to save time. It's probably more than an extra hour if you add hyperlinks to all the lessons for all the classes (including Primary). Would upgrading the tool to newer technology take more than 750 man hours (development + testing)? That's a decent chunk of time. I work in software and I see a lot of complicated work projects get finished in less time than that and the Lesson Schedules tool doesn't feel that complicated. If you look at the numbers that way, there is a benefit to the cost. And then after you update the app, market it to the ward council members like LCR is marketed to the ward council members. You'd probably see a lot more use if people knew it existed. I'm trying to be conservative with the numbers here (only 1 extra hour per unit) and it sure seems like a compelling ROI to me unless you think a church member's time serving in a calling is worth nothing.
When trying to compute the potential resources, we should not forget the other 29,000+ units of the church. Presumably in each of these units, someone has also been spending an hour or more in the past setting up an Excel spreadsheet, Word list or something equivalent and will continue to do so in the future. If a centralized church tool was good enough just to half that time for each person we would free up some 15,000 person-hours every year. But of course these are all voluntary members in the diaspora, so they don't really "cost" the church anything
Re: Lesson Schedules Discountinued 2017
Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2017 6:03 am
by eblood66
dpicken wrote:eblood66 wrote:
And then there's the cost issue. If 750 units were using it and it takes each of them an extra hour to accomplish the task in a different way, that's 750 hours church members waste on administrative tasks because we can't use IT solutions to save time. It's probably more than an extra hour if you add hyperlinks to all the lessons for all the classes (including Primary). Would upgrading the tool to newer technology take more than 750 man hours (development + testing)? That's a decent chunk of time. I work in software and I see a lot of complicated work projects get finished in less time than that and the Lesson Schedules tool doesn't feel that complicated. If you look at the numbers that way, there is a benefit to the cost. And then after you update the app, market it to the ward council members like LCR is marketed to the ward council members. You'd probably see a lot more use if people knew it existed. I'm trying to be conservative with the numbers here (only 1 extra hour per unit) and it sure seems like a compelling ROI to me unless you think a church member's time serving in a calling is worth nothing.
When trying to compute the potential resources, we should not forget the other 29,000+ units of the church. Presumably in each of these units, someone has also been spending an hour or more in the past setting up an Excel spreadsheet, Word list or something equivalent and will continue to do so in the future. If a centralized church tool was good enough just to half that time for each person we would free up some 15,000 person-hours every year. But of course these are all voluntary members in the diaspora, so they don't really "cost" the church anything
Note that the quote above was incorrectly attributed to me. The quote is actually from mevans.
Re: Lesson Schedules Discountinued 2017
Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2017 6:39 am
by dpicken
That's probably my fault. Sorry. I am not getting along very well with the tools on this forum.
Re: Lesson Schedules Discountinued 2017
Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2017 11:58 am
by richmanll
Please note that the Lesson Schedules tool on LDS.org was discontinued December 31, 2016. I explained some of the reasons in my blog post about it at
http://ldsmediatalk.com/2016/11/22/less ... continued/
Re: Lesson Schedules Discountinued 2017
Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2017 12:24 pm
by russellhltn
richmanll wrote:Please note that the Lesson Schedules tool on LDS.org was discontinued December 31, 2016.
You have to click though a couple of warnings, but it appears to still be functional. Although, without the 2017 lessons.
Re: Lesson Schedules Discountinued 2017
Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2017 1:58 pm
by marktonelli
I add my voice to the many who are disappointed (and frankly confused) as to why such an incredibly useful tool is being discontinued. When I was a high priest group assistant in charge of instruction, it was indispensably convenient to organize all instruction in one, centralized location-- I could send links to teachers and group members and generally point them to the Lesson Schedules section of lds.org to prepare for Sunday meetings. And as a newly-called high councilor, I was very much looking forward to offering this handy tool to help the EQ presidency I'm training better organize their Sunday instruction, only to learn it has been discontinued. Now I have to find an alternate, surely less efficient and effective way to help this EQ presidency-- who could truly have benefited from such a tool-- manage their online instruction.
I see the discontinued notice pop up, but underneath it, I also see that the Lesson Schedules portal is still available and appears functional.
Can anyone shed some light on what might be happening?
Is the Church rethinking this change in policy?
Re: Lesson Schedules Discountinued 2017
Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2017 2:03 pm
by russellhltn
marktonelli wrote:Can anyone shed some light on what might be happening?
Is the Church rethinking this change in policy?
Look up-thread two posts before yours.
At this point, I think they're simply too busy to pull the switch.
Re: Lesson Schedules Discountinued 2017
Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2017 3:43 pm
by johnshaw
Rich, the fact remains that no matter the PR, a solution was developed, it wasn't in any way given a priority for priesthood leaders in favor of finding a clerk or two that would, through sheer will-power (knowing how easy it is to implement something from the bottom-up in a ward or stake - if you're wondering its improbable to impossible) - And then, blaming those poor folks they asked to get it going, and not in any way ever directing stake presidents or bishops to use the tool, they made a decision to eliminate it because it wasn't used/adopted by the very leaders they never told to use it.
In the future, as an STS, I will be devoting the exact number of hours that I feel leaders are being trained on by the General and Area Authorities to training on tech items in my stake I've spun my wheels for a couple of decades now, with little to no support from those with 'keys'. And if there was a tool for something that was discontinued, I'll not be devoting any hours to recreating something on my own. If they want to call an ATS - I'll suggest it, but I'm not doing it.
Re: Lesson Schedules Discountinued 2017
Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2017 6:39 pm
by richmanll
We kept the link to Lesson Schedules on the menu after the end of 2016, because if anyone was looking for it, we wanted them to find it and see the notice that it was was being discontinued. Today, we removed the link to it from the LDS.org menu.
Re: Lesson Schedules Discountinued 2017
Posted: Thu Jan 19, 2017 4:20 am
by marianomarini
richmanll wrote:We kept the link to Lesson Schedules on the menu after the end of 2016, because if anyone was looking for it, we wanted them to find it and see the notice that it was was being discontinued. Today, we removed the link to it from the LDS.org menu.
Thank you. I hope that this will stop us to crying for the candy mom has took away.
I continue to think that is time for us, as technician, start to find out a solution for those who really need such a tool.
I'm available and you?
Can church employee be involved?
