Campaign Systems Challenge and Solution: A Case Study
By Heather Klindworth, Partner
This is a case study to conclude our series on the pitfalls of lack of systems and structure in campaigns, nonprofits, and businesses. You can find the first part here!
In our previous posts, we talked about the power of systems and the pitfalls of project management on campaigns. Now, let’s look at a case study of a large-scale campaign that addressed their systems challenges- the shortest presidential campaign in US history. This campaign had to navigate pre-existing infrastructure while also creating massive systems and operations, and facing project management challenges that come with rapidly onboarding personnel and creating a campaign apparatus while operating a field program. Phew!
One of the challenges in rapidly hiring and onboarding staff is readying tech quickly, securely, and efficiently. Each employee received a phone and laptop– every device the campaign purchased required configuration and setup on the backend, and then significant in-depth training for users. This setup and training took an average of 4 hours per staff member. This created a headache for onboarding organizing staff and IT staff. It also meant delays in organizers being fully onboarded in the field in addition to large-scale IT resources devoted to onboarding instead of other IT tasks.
Let’s revisit our systems streamlining checklist:
Audit your systems.
Focus on high-impact and mission-critical first.
Prioritize building for sustainability.
And now let’s take a look at what the campaign did. They took stock of their process and recognized the systems challenges with tech and onboarding ✅. The campaign took swift action to rightsize operations most urgently integral to getting staff in the field by utilizing tech tools and automation to make configuring much faster. ✅ They also invested in these adjustments which ultimately saved onboarding costs and allowed staff to be field-ready faster on a continued basis when field operations were in full swing. ✅
