As a grant manager, you are dealing with a lot of administrative tasks on a daily basis. On top of everything, there are people who have to be aware of the status of the grant project and others that need to know everything about the applications to be able to review them. Of course, we must also mention the applicants who can't be left in the dark and need to know what's going on with their project applications and when you're going to deliver a final decision about them. All in all: it's a lot.
If you want to structure your grant management plan via manual repetitive tasks, it's up to you but there are better ways of doing it; ways that would most probably ensure you a successful and easy to run project. And it also comes down to one word: Strategy. Building a strategy implies that you will set up goals and steps to follow so that nothing is forgotten and no one is lost in the sea of things to do.
Let's start from the beginning.
Step 1: Set up clear goals
Once you have set the goals for your organization, you can draw a strategy from it. Your strategy will help you achieve the goals by following the steps Think of a strategy as a clear vision with easy directions to follow. Building a grant without knowing what you want to reach will just leave everybody in a blurry area where they don't know why there are doing it. Purpose is key for every kind of projects.
Step 2: Get everyone on the same page
No matter how many people work for your company, you need to make everyone know what is going on. Surely, not everyone will be directly involved in the process; but at least, they will all know how it is going and why you are working on this project so hard. Everyone is going to be taking the same steps to achieve the goals that you have set for your organization.
Step 3: Set direction to your priorities
When you are planning out your strategy, question every direction you put towards the strategy that your organisation is going to be following, whether or not it will help you achieve what you intend to.
Step 4: Simplify decision making
When you have put your strategy in place, it will help boost productivity in your organisation. No matter what situations your organisation may come across, you have already have your strategy to follow if you encounter a certain situation. You do not have to spend a lot of time on finding out what to do next because the strategy has already been put in place.
Do you feel more comfortable with your grant strategy? Great. Now comes the time of asking yourself how you will articulate each step of your strategy. What are the tools that you will be using? Keep in mind that these same tools are going to be used by your team members; so if you're comfortable using them, make sure they feel the same way about them too: there is nothing worse than getting frustration from the team because they can't understand and manage a tool that is supposed to make their life and tasks easier to complete.
Nowadays it is clear that technology has brought a lot of advantages in everyday life and even more in getting things done for work. Even more during the covid19 situation as we turned to technology and the digital tools that we developed to make our work possible while working from home, in total isolation from each others. The same kind of digital solutions exist for grant management project. It might be worth it to take a look at them.
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