Project Hermes

Project Hermes: forging ahead

Stephen Blank, Provincial Grand Master for Cheshire and member of the Project Hermes Steering Group, tells us how the new system has turned a significant corner

Project Hermes is designed to make the job of the Lodge Secretary, as well as the Chapter Scribe E, significantly easier. It will be delivered through an easy-to-use, web-based system that will allow them to access our ADelphi membership database and also guide them through the many rules outlined in the Book of Constitutions (BoC). We call this system the Hermes front end (HFE), and I think it is fair to say that the project turned a significant corner in January.

New processes and proposed changes Throughout 2019, the project team of Tony Keating and Nigel Codron have essentially been doing research. It took many months just to capture our existing membership processes in a series of flowcharts, noting where they interacted with the BoC. Having done that, we turned our attention to designing new processes that could be computerised, so to speak, and proposing changes, where necessary, to the BoC.

We have been careful to consider the real-world requirements of Lodge Secretaries, so all of these processes have been shared with groups of them from the Provinces of Bristol, Cheshire and Hampshire & Isle of Wight, as well as Metropolitan Grand Lodge and the Districts of Eastern Archipelago and Cyprus. That is why it has taken what might seem like a long time to complete.

Having done that, we have also put together some very rough sketches of the sorts of screens that a Lodge Secretary would see and how he moves from one to the other. Furthermore, we have had a discussion with a developer who might create the HFE – it was never our plan to do it in-house – to check whether we were being overambitious in our plans. I am pleased to say we have passed that test, subject to confirmation by the Board of General Purposes, which was due in February.

Prioritising user experience We have also hosted presentations for groups of Secretaries around the south-east to show them what is being planned, and hope to do more around the country over the next few months. Detailed training will take place before the rollout of the new system, with helpful videos available online.

What we are doing right now is producing diagrams of the new processes that we can share with every Province and District for their comments. Once we have everything approved by the Board and Grand Lodge, we can go out to tender for the HFE development. There is also work to be carried out on the ADelphi system by the United Grand Lodge of England team, led by Neil Tomkinson, so that it can work happily with the HFE. In my last article, I suggested we might be able to go live in June, but that is now looking more like the first quarter of 2021. I hope you will agree that it is worth taking the time to be careful so that we deliver a system that is as easy to use and as foolproof as possible.