Built fast. Never defined.
Two teams, same data, different answers.
Hey there,
Two teams at Airbnb once looked at the same question and got two different answers: which city had the most bookings last week? Nobody was wrong. They just each had their own idea of what counts as a booking.
Turns out Airbnb's not the only one - I've watched the same thing happen with a vibe-coded dashboard: something that got built fast, looked right, and nobody ever stopped to agree on what the numbers actually meant. That's a trap we all fall into now that building the thing is the easy part.
That's why I think every organization should have a shared vocabulary - for churches, let's call it a ministry dictionary: language and definitions on the key metrics that actually matter to your church.
One thing I'm building: a one-page version of it, ten words every church argues about - active, engaged, giving - with space for a team to write down what they actually mean by each one, before the next report gets built on a guess. Same idea works for any team - whatever your version of "active" is, write it down before you build around it.
If you're interested in how to not fall into this trapBuilding Got Easier. Understanding Was Never OptionalHave you built something in a weekend that would have taken a quarter? A partner church had a list of priorities. Somewhere on it was an executive dashboard...Brad
P.S. I'm at CITN in Louisville Oct 4-6. Say hi if you'll be there.