Electrisea

Do your Due Diligence

This lesson is hard-won, and in hindsight, so obvious. My proposal was roundly congratulated by the granting committee on its concept, content and for its thoroughness. Additionally, I was warmly invited to submit again in the future. However, I was squarely turned down because my grant proposal requested $45k, far, far more than the typical max grant of $8-10k at the time. In fact, except for one showpiece grant (typically the Burning *Man* himself), most of the grants given were in the range of $3k. My lack of advance due diligence also caused a second costly miscalculation that could have been avoided... with a bit of research after the fact, I discovered that most grant proposals that were accepted, were in the 2-10 page long benchmark, meaning that I *way* overdid mine. Part of my rationale for the detail I put into the effort, was the need I felt to justify the large amount of money I requested. With a little due diligence up front, I could have easily saved myself a month of writing, and potentially won a grant (albeit smaller) in the process. I include this hard-won lesson here, (and indeed many of the others) despite the embarrassment they cause me, in the hopes that I might give another artist else a leg up, and hopefully save them a whole boatload of work. (Nice water-themed comment, eh?) In the end, there are several redeeming factors that lead me to believe this was a case of going after the wrong funding source, rather than failing to scale down my request. None of them negates the valuable lessons about the importance of advance due diligence. My vision of the larger, multi-piece installation *will* require an investment in the range I requested; that I am absolutely confident in! Also, of this form, I would not choose to do a smaller, cheaper installation, for I have already done it (with Blade). Additionally, I really appreciate the experience of learning what is involved, on many levels, in a writing a large grant proposal. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I have a good grant proposal sitting on the shelf for someday (or, more likely, an excellent template which I can modify to a new purpose). Were it not for the above facts, I would have felt positively stung by my lack of due-diligence around this project. As it is, I feel like I have learned an expensive, and important lesson, that I will take forward with me, and avoid in the future.

Planning Takes Time

I was surprised by the amount of time it took to produce all of the different parts of this proposal. All in all the 100+ page proposal took roughly 1 1/2 months of my spare time to complete. Given the above point (A Plan Is Alive), it is important to ask whether the result of all of that hard work would have been resilient enough to remain useful long enough to justify its required investment. (I would argue no) Or, was its single use shortly after printing, valuable enough as a one-shot, to justify it. If it had produced funding for the project, and ultimately resulted in art that transferred a lot of joy to its viewers, I would argue yes. In any case, know what your plan's purpose is, spend an appropriate amount of time on the plan and put it into the form that best supports its purpose.

A Printed Plan Is A Snapshot, But A Plan Is Alive

(I am including this lesson here, though it has been learned and relearned many times elsewhere in my career, esproj. as a supervisor of others. Its wisdom belongs thematically in this project's discussion of planning, and project management. At the time I wrote the above project proposal I did not have this wisdom, and I am *so* glad I didn't try to execute my above proposal *rigidly from the printed plan* as I believe I would have at the time. Such an effort would have been doomed to failure, or would have had to quickly evolve, and the form that it was in (disparate spreadsheets, all pasted into a word processing document) would not have been easy to evolve!) A printed plan is a snapshot, but a plan is alive. This is a fact that seems lost on many wielders of plans (but may not actually be -- the good ones actually do get it). The moment your plan leaves the printer, it starts to age, to lose its usefulness, and may eventually become a hindrance to your project's progress. The plan you printed was a snapshot of what you thought would happen with your project, at the time that you wrote the plan. Almost undoubtedly, it does not accurately represent what will happen (because surprises always happen), and what is happening (because plans almost always evolve). This is an important element to convey to whoever you gave the printed plan to, for they may easily miss this subtle point, and continue to refer to the printout as if it is what is happening. If they miss the point, and worse, if they then communicate to others about your plan, they are spreading potentially stale information about your project, that can be costly to manage and correct. It is important to convey that your plan will change, almost immediately, and provide a mechanism through which a stakeholder can receive up-to-date status on the project. This can be something like a regular check-in meeting -- provided that it is short and focused enough to retain a stakeholder's attention, or a status report provided it is interesting enough, or otherwise shown to be read by the stakeholder. I recommend a modern "Agile"-based project management approach for many reasons, one of the main ones being to minimize the inefficiency that miscommunication can cause a project. (Google 'agile project management'). A good project management tool represents a plan in a way that is quick to assemble, quick to change and easy to communicate.