 How to Truly Love Your AMS: Best Practices for Association Success by Towsif Nasor, PMP I recently passed the two-year mark as an IT Consultant in the association space. Through the last couple of years, I have seen how Association Management Systems (AMS) can transform organizational operations, member engagement, and overall efficiency. However, much like any professional relationship, getting the most out of your AMS requires strategic planning, proactive management, and a clear understanding of what your goals are. This month, while we are all surrounded by heart-shaped balloons and messages of devotion and affection, it's a great time to consider how you can “love” your AMS – by making sure it works seamlessly for your organization. Here are professional best practices to leverage better value from your AMS: Define Clear Objectives:
Successful implementation begins with a clear understanding of your organization’s objectives and goals. It is essential to regularly revisit these objectives to ensure alignment. We should consider questions such as:
Answering these questions and setting SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound) goals will keep your AMS implementation and system utilization focused on your mission, enabling your organization to make a bigger impact and love your AMS more. Prioritize Staff Training and Adoption: Even the most sophisticated AMS will fall short without buy-in from the user and proper training for all. To ensure your team is empowered to make the most of their system, organizations can provide comprehensive training during onboarding for any new staff members. Offering refresher courses to keep skills sharp and monthly brown bags to introduce new features can also help achieve this. Finally, creating user-friendly resources, such as SOP documents and walkthrough videos can help support ongoing learning. A well-trained team will not only maximize the potential of your AMS, but will introduce your organization to smoother operations and more concrete outcomes. Monitor Performance and Measure Success: It is vital to establish metrics for evaluating the performance and impact that your new AMS has after implementation. In these moments, it is valuable to think through some SMART goals that you can set. These goals should help answer and measure against questions such as:
Analysis of such metrics will allow you to understand the holistic overview of your AMS and adjust your configurations as needed to maintain overall effectiveness. Engage in Ongoing Vendor Collaboration: One of the biggest challenges I find organizations experience is maintaining an effective relationship with system vendors. This can have an adverse effect on organizations as they fail to engage in ongoing collaboration with the vendor. Your relationship with your AMS vendor and implementation partner is critical to your organization’s success. Establishing a structured communication plan for ongoing collaboration will enable you to discuss any upcoming system updates or new features to help drive member engagement. This element of collaboration can not only be utilized to address any ongoing issues and inefficiencies, but also allow you to explore opportunities for further optimization and integrations. Proactively collaborating with your vendor, on a quarterly or monthly basis, can help ensure that your AMS evolves alongside your organization. A well-managed AMS can be one of your organization’s most valuable tools, but it requires active involvement, ongoing enhancement, collaboration, and maybe a little bit of love. By following these best practices, you can ensure that your AMS remains a strategic asset. These steps ultimately can help your organization achieve its overall goals and mission. Comments are closed.
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