Less Chaos, More Care: Tommy Ryan on Measuring What Matters

Ann Price, PhD and Tommy Ryan

When was the last time technology made your work feel lighter instead of heavier?

If you work in human services, I’m guessing you had to think about that one for a minute. I know I did.

That’s the question at the heart of my latest Community Possibilities episode with my friend Tommy Ryan, founder and CEO of ThreeWill, a Georgia-based Microsoft 365 technology and operations consulting firm. ThreeWill helps organizations in home and community-based chronic care reclaim time for the work that really matters.

Tommy and I met about two years ago when we sat next to each other at a small faith training at our parish. He spotted a data sticker on my water bottle, and a friendship was born. (Community leaders, take note. Put a sticker on your water bottle. You never know what conversation it will start!)

It Starts in the Garden

Tommy’s story doesn’t start with software. Two battles with cancer and an emergency heart surgery taught him three lessons he now builds his life and business around: purpose, relationships, and clarity. Along the way, a small 10 by 50 foot garden plot grew into a 5,000 square foot farm. (I left my visit with a basket of Sungold tomatoes and a serious case of garden envy.)

People Are Paid to Care, Not to Track Data

Before we talked, I read this line on Tommy’s blog:

“In human services, people are paid to care. Technology is often just something you tolerate to get the job done.”

Oh, how I felt that. Staff are stretched thin, data feels like one more thing, and there’s often some fear in the mix. In my world, we call it evaluation anxiety.

So Tommy doesn’t start with technology. He starts by asking what matters, then sorts what to measure into three buckets:

•        Improve. What are you trying to make better, and how will you know?

•        Protect. What do you need to watch to keep the people in your care safe?

•        Explain. What do funders need to see to invest in your impact?

Then narrow it down to a handful of numbers (Tommy suggests five to fifteen) and look at them weekly. An annual goal doesn’t help you achieve it. The weekly check-in does. As Tommy says, “What is measured is managed.”

Less Chaos, More Care

This was my favorite moment of the conversation:

“You want to have less chaos and more care.”

Tommy told me about a client who spent hours each week going line by line through a massive spreadsheet that only one person really knew how to use. Sound familiar? ThreeWill helped them use a system that checks the data as it’s entered and gives leaders a simple dashboard. If everything is green, you can breathe. And that weekly meeting? Gone.

The best part? Tommy believes most organizations already own the tools they need. They just need help making them work the way they actually work. (This is why I keep saying, talk to an evaluator before you sign that big software contract!)

The Community Possibility

When I asked Tommy what community possibilities he sees, his answer was simple and true:

“I hope that we find ways to spend more time with people and less time with computers.”

If technology and AI make us more efficient, let’s not just fill the space with more work. Let’s use it for community.

A Resource from Tommy: The ThreeWill Productivity Manifesto

“Productivity isn’t about doing more. It’s about doing what matters most.”

👉 Contact Tommy and ask for his ThreeWill Productivity Manifesto.

Learn more at threewill.com, and follow Tommy on LinkedIn for his newsletter, Sowing Success, where he shares lessons from the farm that apply to business and life.

What’s one thing you could stop tracking so you can focus on what really matters? I’d love to hear from you.

Take care, friends,

Ann