WorldVision

Challenge

To Build a web based tool that helped a global charity World Vision plan, model and monitor their cash and voucher based relief distribution both for post disaster relief as well as long term intervention.  It meant modeling real world scenarios and all the complexity associated with that through the system.

Solution

A tool that tracked a multitude of data that helped a variety of stakeholders to guarantee efficient delivery of aid in the form of cash or vouchers for a variety of projects.  The solution looked at the following important areas to formulate the entire picture of things on the ground and surrounding the project”

​​o   Project Details 

o   Donors – Donors are agencies or organizations that provide grants

o   Location – Geography as well as target households of the most in need. 

o   Needs Assessment – identifying the basket of needs per household per month

o   Market Assessment – This consists of 3 steps :

-  Selection of Traders in the area

-  Assessment of Data per Trader 

- Selection of items “in-kind

o   Transfer Size Calculation - Transfer Calculation displays all the items that are selected to be delivered in Cash. 

o   Distribution Details – Distribution details allow the Cash Coordinator to plan the distribution of grant money to households based on needs and market assessment.

o   Payment Mechanism – This allows selection of payment agencies that will handle the distributions in the project

Build

We built the system in modules that then talked to each other.

There was a huge amount of calculation and business rules to help users make efficient use of the system and to get meaningful data out of the system.  We had to keep things agile to respond to an ever changing understanding of what was going to be the key driver for cash delivery and we made sure that we kept the prototype and QA up to speed on all changes.

Integration

We wanted to be able to ingest data sets from field workers so it needed to be able to take data from a variety of survey tools and disparate data sources.

Approach

We took a very proactive approach to workshopping the requirements to gain a full understanding of what the product required.  We built an HTML prototype as well as proper specification documentation as required by World Vision.  We then took a very agile approach to the development as ideas and stakeholders intervened but this collaborative approach delivered a product the charity was truly delighted with.  It was also important that we made sure that we had a very competent PM and that all developers were product specialists and had a full understanding of the product and what it was being used for.  Regular show and tells helped with client management and the spread of understanding.

User Group

Field workers, Disaster relief Managers, accounting departments, aid agencies and government

Tech Stack

Node.js, react.js, redux

Team Size

Up to 6 again depending on the

Project Duration

6 months for MVP delivery but a 2 year roadmap.

Outcome

The system was delivered successfully and piloted on a number of World Vision cash interventions.  It was then integrated into their LMMS (Last Mile Mobile Solutions) platform that integrated an identity element to the planning tool.

App