Once you’ve chosen your system you’ll need to translate your blue-sky thinking to an actual blueprint for the build. We help map and translate your processes into clear technical documentation for your vendor. We also prepare your team to clean up data, forms, and workflows to ensure you don’t haul old junk into your new system.
Grantbook’s superpower lies in applying both sector knowledge and grantmaking expertise to all of our builds. During implementation there are an endless number of seemingly small decisions that can have long term impact on how you work. Having builders who understand the work you do will ensure you capture the promise of your chosen system.
Implementations are long and complex change initiatives that touch multiple stakeholders and require a lot of your capacity. We can take on much of that and free you up to focus on your core role. Successful and grantmaker-centric software implementation takes a village and it helps to choose your village wisely!
We use a hybrid approach combining principles of Agile and Scrum with Waterfall planning to manage timelines and expectations and always implement robust change management practices to ensure success. Here are just a few activities we’ll work on together during implementation:
To get to know your staff and your needs, we’ll conduct user interviews, write user stories, and map user journeys. These documents guide the technical requirements and improve adoption. Then, we’ll ensure staff alignment by co-creating design principles with your team. These principles will guide how we design your system implementation.
Based on your technical needs and grantmaking goals, we’ll help you design and build grantee-friendly forms to collect data you can report on and workflows to help your team get work done more efficiently.
Your system may need to talk to other tools, such as your accounting or impact reporting databases. We’ll use middleware tools and scripts to ensure that data flows seamlessly between your tools.
We work with your team to coordinate testing to validate and sign off on the delivered solution. This may involve just internal staff or grantees as well.
This may involve just internal staff or grantees as well. We’ll provide training materials and workshops to your users to prepare for system launch and to manage your technology after launch.
Even if Grantbook does not build the actual solution, we’ll provide project management, business analysis, and change management coaching to support your foundation through implementation. Successful implementations take a village and it helps to choose your village wisely!
This diagram shows a breakdown of roles that exist and where Grantbook can support your implementation project:
