Recommended
More Related Content
Similar to Grant Driven Development Challenges
Similar to Grant Driven Development Challenges (20)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
Grant Driven Development Challenges
- 1. Grant Driven Development Chad Fennell University of Minnesota Libraries
- 2. We Got the Grant! Brad Brandewie (Aug 14, 2011). Good times on the White Rim... https://www.mountainproject.com/photo/107247382
- 3. The Grant is Not the Goal And...Grants Present Challenges
- 4. Grants Are “Big Design Up Front” (BDUF) 1. In order to secure funding, you need a plan 2. Software plans are often wrong “Accurately understanding other people requires getting perspective, not simply taking it. To understand the mind of another person, we need to rely on our ears more than our intuition.” Tal Eyal, Mary Steffel, Nicholas Epley (October 09, 2018). Research: Perspective-Taking Doesn’t Help You Understand What Others Want https://bit.ly/2QLhX4m
- 5. How can we guard against BDUF?
- 6. Guarding Against Grant BUFD ● Validate your core ideas before applying ○ Lo-Fi (paper) prototypes ○ Test a [Bare] Minimum Viable Product (MVP) ● Strive to commit to goals, not features ● Identify a strong product owner (doesn’t have to be the PI) ● Workshops - e.g. brain-dump features into a spreadsheet, everybody ranks them 1-5 pre- meeting, discuss conclusions ● Lose the grant ○ A bad grant is worse than no grant
- 7. Everything Changes ● Hard deadlines: it’s “done” on May 1st...because it’s May 1st ○ Reality: you try many things that don’t make the final cut and alter many original ideas ● Software evolves, grants do not ○ User needs change, the technology environment changes, everything changes ○ Large systems tend to be hard to change ● Maintenance eats you over time ○ “Software maintenance costs will typically form 75% of TCO.” https://galorath.com/software_maintenance_cost
- 8. How do we achieve sustainable success?
- 9. Planning for Change ● Be as broad as getting funded will allow ● Seek grants that closely align with institutional strengths and goals to gain institutional support ● Limit project scope and dependencies ○ Do a couple of things well, avoid “featuritis” ○ Quickly kill-off features that don’t work ○ Small systems evolve more easily ● Low maintenance implementations ● Alternative supplemental / sustainable funding models? ● Seek out “Exploratory” grants ● Under-promise & over-deliver
- 10. Planning for Change ● Be as broad as getting funded will allow ● Seek grants that closely align with institutional strengths and goals to gain institutional support ● Limit project scope and dependencies ○ Do a couple of things well, avoid “featuritis” ○ Quickly kill-off features that don’t work ○ Small systems evolve more easily ● Low maintenance implementations ● Alternative supplemental / sustainable funding models? ● Seek out “Exploratory” grants ● Under-promise & over-deliver
Editor's Notes
- Chicken and egg problem: users need to see something in order to evaluate it.
- Lo-fi tests, MVPs, other forms of work products are powerful grant materials Careful with SURVEYS - we are terrible at predicting what products we will actually use and how we will use them