Do you want to write twice as many grants in half the time?

It sounds like a gimmick, I agree.

Yet, there is real truth in the title of the book, “Scrum: Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time.”

As an Agile framework, Scrum is a wonderful approach for grant writing teams to utilize as a means to increase the efficiency of application design, to manage the iterations of applications and numerous players that have a stake in successful grant applications, and to increase team happiness. Scrum is not about a specific software and it is not an acronym. Scrum is a uniform approach to doing work, assigning work in teams, and iterating work successfully during a long period of time. In this case, the working being grant applications. Scrum is not only for a consulting firm to use. Scrum is not only for large grant departments. Rather, Scrum is a framework that works in ALL settings including those organizations that have one grant professional on staff.

The DH Leonard Consulting team has been utilizing Scrum with its clients for more than three years. In that time, the efficiency of completing grant applications has increased. In fact, the efficiency of our work has MORE than doubled. The most common question I have received since I started talking about how our team uses Scrum is, “Where do I start?”

Are you ready to learn more?

Check out this recording of the free webinar, Using an Agile Framework to Win More Grants, I presented in collaboration with Foundant for Grantseekers. In this webinar I walk through specific examples of what some nuances of the Scrum framework being implemented in our unique work as grant professionals including grant calendars and managing large applications.

Did you participate in that original webinar, or watch the recording and are as excited about Scrum as I am?

Before you dive in and try to implement Scrum in your grant seeking process, or within your larger development department, or in your organization as a whole, you need to learn about the framework. In addition to the book by Jeff Sutherland, here are some of our team’s go to Scrum resources:

• Scrum, Inc. (online resources as well as provider of professional development)
• Scrum Alliance (credentialing body as well as provider of professional development)

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