Pitfalls and Barriers to Avoid When Connecting Your Community
Lack of neutrality
If a key member of your connected community team—your leader or one of your champions, for instance—is perceived as lacking neutrality, your community’s willingness to trust in the objectives and outcomes of your project may be severely compromised. In cities where broadband projects have failed to get off the ground, this scenario has often played out in the arena of IT vendor selection. Hence, it’s critical for your project to establish a policy and practice of “vendor” and “technology neutrality,” whereby your procurement decisions are never made or perceived as being made with vendors’ agendas leading the process.
“Politics”
Whether they relate to partners, vendors, the community, the federal, state, or local government, politics—the various agendas and plans (stated and unstated) of multiple players active in your community)--can truly hamper a project of this kind. That’s why it’s important to reach out to everyone who might have a stake, or even an interest, in your project, early and often. Our experience has taught us that it’s most constructive to find ways to bring a myriad of potentially opposing objectives together and reach consensus rather than deal with unexpected battles down the road.
Weak leadership
Strong leadership must be displayed in a variety of roles within your connected community project. This is especially true in the leader and champion roles. A project can fail when key individuals in these roles are perceived by my other team members, stakeholders, or the community at large as driven by self-interest, apathetic, unable to execute effectively, politically motivated, or apathetic.
Ineffective business model
No different than something you may have seen in various projects at your “day job,” an ineffectual business model can also kill a community-based broadband initiative. Classic examples include focusing on an unattainable target audience of end-users or failing to include a sustainability model in long-term project planning.
Faltering execution
Poor execution is another classic project spoiler. This can occur even when your project plan — a foundational document for your initiative — is excellent. In fact, it often occurs when there’s a gap between project planning and execution. For instance, perhaps the execution isn’t managed appropriately for project complexity or the execution team lacks the necessary technical skills that the project demands.
Poor teaming
Finally, poor teaming can often sneak up on a group of individuals, each of whom has the best intentions his/her community. In order to avoid this scenario, clear, regular, and consistent communication among all team members and project partners is critical. It sets the scene for smooth cooperation throughout the length of your project.