We've delivered on a number of successful Innovate UK projects in the last five years. We've had bids accepted and rejected, and we've seen all kinds of projects, from small single-party £50k feasibility studies through to multi-million, multi-party technical cross-disciplinary new innovative product development. We get asked a lot (A LOT) about our story of Innovate UK success, in terms of managing these projects for successful outcomes and maximum impact, so we've distilled some of our learning here for you.
Our intention is to share the information we have - Innovate UK projects make the UK technology scene a better place, and the outputs from them have huge potential to make a positive impact on the UK economy and the lives of all of us - so it's in our interest, and yours, to maximise their potential.
Pre-project planning.
It sounds obvious and glib, but every our of planning you can put in before starting the project, will pay huge dividends later. We don't really mean the statutory Gantt chart or risk register, useful though those are. This form of planning is closer to a technical soft-run of everything in the project, as far as is possible. Sit down with as much of the project team as possible (you may need to bribe them with food), and talk through the intricate detailed steps of the project. Do you have in place who, what, and the wherewithal you need? Does the whole team share the why and the how, in detail as well as overall? What do the stakeholders think are the killer project risks? How would you mitigate these if (or before) they come up?
For more detail on this approach, we recommend the excellent 'How Big Things Get Done' by Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner.
Project Setup
Practically speaking, during setup, the key tasks are dealt with through the Innovate UK portal - the same place you applied for the competition. You'll need to submit several documents and details, and it's likely that the IUK finance team will ak for some additional information - typically to demonstrate that you are going to be financially stable for the duration of the project, that your cashflow can handle the project funding cycle (especially for SMEs), or similar.
Once completed you'll be asked to forecast your spend per month across the project. This is a remarkably useful exercise (and if you've finished a cashflow forecast for the above, you will already have the information), as it forces some early project planning discussions (see above). Again, this is all managed through the Innovate UK portal.
Perhaps more critically than the paperwork, you should use this period to gather the project team together and to reiterate the project objectives you agreed when writing the bid, check that each partner's situation relative to the project is unchanged (often not the case), and try and scope out any team dynamic issues early on. We would recommend a whole-team, in-person meeting as soon as possible after you have been informed of winning the project. This is also a great time to go over the risks outlined above.
Project Delivery
Ultimately, delivery is a product of your team, your plan, and the technical feasibility of your approach. The key to remember that, especially in bleeding-edge technical developments, Innovate UK expect and embrace that some projects don't work - sometimes there are technical barriers which are unknown at project start and are impossible to overcome or where overcoming them will likely never be commercially viable. Clearly, the best outcome is technical and commercial success, but don't be tempted to hide 'failure' from the Innovate team, embrace it, mitigate the risks, and present a strong follow up plan. Reality sometimes smacks you in the face regardless of how good your plan is!
Team delivery is key to all good projects, and this is where work in the planning stage to develop a strong team culture, identify and mitigate all the people-risks, and make sure you have the right people in the right roles will pay dividends. Once the plan is in place, the technology development path is clear, and the team are resourced and capable, successful delivery will follow. As your work will be largely funded from the public purse, you are not only accountable to the spectre of scientific and technological success, but also to that funding body.
Every Innovate UK project has a "MO". They are typically experts in your industry or close to it, who have specific experience relative to your project.
This is the moment to bring in a new cast member - the Monitoring Officer.
If you build a strong relationship with this key stakeholder, your project Monitoring Officer is a supportive, helpful communication conduit to Innovate UK. By being responsive, open, clear, and above all, honest, you can make your Monitoring Officer's job easier - and potentially even pleasant.
Honesty should be an obvious requirement - but some projects we've seen have worked hard to obfuscate the reality of the project from the MO. In the short term, we understand the reasoning behind this style of management. The MO can be seen a someone who can prevent - payments or progress - but the reality is that the project MO is tasked with enabling the project team to succeed. They are 'marked' on the success of the project - imagine if an MO had 5 sequential projects which failed, this would look terrible on their report card, so remember it's in everyone's interest that things go well, and for such a critical member of the project team, they must be informed at every step of the way. Work to your MO's preferred way of reporting, make their life easy, and understand their key concerns and work to resolve them.
Projects typically flow in quarters. At the end of each quarter, each partner collates their spend, their hours worked, and a project summary, and this is combined by the Lead Project Manager (LPM) to produce a pack which can be submitted to the MO at the QRM (Quarterly Review Meeting). Then once the MO is satisfied that the project is on track and has asked for any justifications/amendments needed, the funding for that quarter is released.
---
A note on cashflow
The outcome of all the above is that costs for the project are typically paid for by IUK (at 50/60/70/100%) over 3 months in arrears in some cases. In large projects, the partners' claims can take weeks to be approved by the MO. If one partner takes a long time to submit their claim, this delays all parties. Practically this can mean 4+ months between project start and first payment - it is imperative that your business understand this cashflow consequence of the project and are ready to fund this.
---
Project close out
Get the down-low from your MO well before the project closes - what outputs are they expecting to see? What do they want to see on exploitation? How do they feel the project is delivering generally? Are there any changes before project end that they'd like to see?
Again, getting ahead of this is key - waiting until your final project meeting, where you're looking for the final tranche of funding to be released, only to find there was an expectation mismatch with the Innovate UK team, can be seriously damaging to all parties and result in work beyond project close being required.
As your project winds up, its important to publicly trumpet your success (in an IP-sensitive way, of course), on your communication channels. This has two key benefits
It raises the profile of both your company, your project partners, and Innovate UK.
It is free marketing - people like to read about successful projects which addressed challenges which affect us all.
And finally - make sure you're having fun. Life is too short for that, it's allowed to enjoy yourself AND develop amazing, world-leading, cutting-edge technologies.
Need support?
We're confident that your project will be a success! If you'd like our support either technically or in project management, on any form of technical project (IUK or not) do get in touch for a chat. We're always interested in the work of clever people doing clever things, and if we can help, we will.
Comments