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Every effort was made to anticipate the costs of ownership for a networking system. However, there were some issues that were not stressed strongly enough. Initially, the NFPB did not understand how critical it was that the person filling the network administrator position be experienced enough to deal with the daily networking issues that arise. This issue is central to the concept of sustainability. It is essential that the network administrator have full responsibility for the network and be given access to the resources that are required to support it.

Of greater concern is keeping the staff motivated to continue using their computer skills and equipment. The organization might assign a particular staff member to manage changes as the NFPB continues to computerize its tasks. Another approach is to slightly modify several of the job descriptions to include the necessary computer skills required in a particular position. This helps ensure that the computer skills are not lost if an employee leaves the organiza-tion. The new employee would have the requisite skills or be expected to learn them.

The support and enthusiasm of NFPB senior staff was crucial to the success of this initiative. Ms. Chevannes, Director of NFPB, was behind the networking initiative since its inception. She was involved in all phases of NFPB’s develop-ment, and her staff agreed that she is the “glue that keeps everything together.” Dr. McDonald, NFPB’s Medical Director, is a strong and effective administrator who understands the need for birth control and family planning in Jamaica. She was particularly interested in the potential of SPSS software for research and is using it extensively for sociological data analysis.

Was it All Worth it?
The NFPB staff ’s lack of experience with computerization as a group initially made it difficult for them to understand the consequences of using computers for the NFPB as a whole. Discussions about networking, sharing files and directories, and maintaining organiza-tion- wide appointments were distant to their frame of reference and overshad-owed by their ambition to learn the computer skills at the individual level.