University of Exeter Digital Transformation - Programme & Project Partner
This is a max 2.5 million contract over 2 years. Successful bidding would mean that at least 2 of us would be full time employed on the project as "leaders" and we'd need to be coordinating loads of other people.
Pros: We're qualified and could do innovative interesting things. A project plan of Discovery, Concept, Development, Implementation, Analysis could work, we've used these phases before, and I think it makes sense as a first step proposal. We can point to our individual accomplishments (MoodleNet, Greenpeace, Mozilla, etc) in global programming and cover all the bases.
Cons: It will cost us at least 8 hours to put a proposal together and we might not win. We don't know if we would WANT to win anyway because there aren't 2 of us jumping up and down for it. Other, bigger, orgs will bid.
Do we invest the time in this to see if we get it?
Bryan Mathers Thu 7 Mar 2019 6:21PM
If we put our chances of getting it to one side, I think our co-op would have to change quite a bit to be able to take on a job of this size. As an example, we haven't really had to manage other people in any of our previous work. Also, I think it would dominate our co-op and what it becomes. Do I think we could do this job? I think we could do anything, if we put our minds to it. Do I think it's the right thing for our co-op? I honestly don't think it is. I'm only expressing this opinion as I think it would require all of us to be on board for this job to be a possibility.
John Bevan (We Are Open) Fri 8 Mar 2019 9:19AM
It's a long shot for sure. We would need someone like us to have had a strong voice in the scoping/consultancy phase that preceded this process to have any chance of landing it. I'm all in favour of shooting for the moon and landing in, erm, Exeter but also wary of anyone spending time/effort on things that have very low probability of happening.
My feeling is that any proposal we submitted would be well received but would be used to inform/lift the ambition of discussions with other, bigger, orgs. This will go to "a safe pair of hands" rather than anything interesting. Only go for it if we're happy to influence the outcome rather than win the work.
Nest steps: build a time machine and send Laura back to get the consulting gig that led to this contract being parceled up and put to tender.
Laura Hilliger Fri 8 Mar 2019 10:18AM
Thanks y'all. Just need you all to talk me down off clouds I'm not sure I want to be on anyway. FWIW I have no doubt that we could, together, manage something this big. But I agree that it would be dominating us, and it's not fun or interesting enough for that. Also John's point – our proposal would be kickass (because I would remix a bunch of P4 stuff and name drop and things), but our size would kill us in the end.
So, for me it's settled. No more work required :D
Grainne Mon 11 Mar 2019 9:29AM
Sounds like there's a clear majority. I'll go back to making soap :-)
Doug Belshaw · Thu 7 Mar 2019 5:27PM
Like I said in the meeting, I don't want to be a damp squib, but I really can't see us getting this.
If it were broken up into smaller work packages, I could envisage us working on the scoping and design. However a lot of it looks kind of boring, and requires one of us to be on site.
I'll probably abstain from this one, which means that if you do decide to work on a bid and it's unsuccessful, I'm agree that if we have enough surplus at the end of the year, you should be recompensed for your time.
I would be delighted to be proved wrong, obviously!