Event Title
An Exploration of Communication Strategies for Effectively Organizing and Managing Collaborative Grant Writing Groups
Location
Exhibition Hall, DeVos Center
Description
PURPOSE: This research explored approaches to organizing and managing collaborative grant writing efforts, as there are few documented accounts regarding the range of variation in the processes currently deployed by professionals working within this context. SUBJECTS: Participants were comprised of professionals who had at least three years of grant experience and who had participated as a member of a collaborative grant writing group. METHODS AND MATERIALS: A qualitative interview script was designed using an objectivist approach. Interview questions were arranged into six categories: pre-collaboration, orientation, conflict, emergence, reinforcement and reflection. Interviews were recorded, as were semi-transcribed, detailed field notes. Data collection concluded once a point of saturation had been reached in each of the pre-determined categories of inquiry. ANALYSES: A review and analysis of participant responses were used to formulate general conclusions about the subject. This process allowed the researcher to build a logical interrelationship among themes, and present these in summation along with best practice strategies. RESULTS: Findings were used to build a typology of the roles specific to collaborative grant writing groups, provide a discussion of ideal group composition and leadership, and to identify and suggest ten best practice strategies for organizing and managing grant writing teams during the phases of the collaborative writing process. CONCLUSIONS: The suggested strategies are presented within the framework of Fisher’s (1970) theory of small group decision making in an effort to suggest how they might be deployed at strategic points throughout the process to help such groups work more efficaciously.
An Exploration of Communication Strategies for Effectively Organizing and Managing Collaborative Grant Writing Groups
Exhibition Hall, DeVos Center
PURPOSE: This research explored approaches to organizing and managing collaborative grant writing efforts, as there are few documented accounts regarding the range of variation in the processes currently deployed by professionals working within this context. SUBJECTS: Participants were comprised of professionals who had at least three years of grant experience and who had participated as a member of a collaborative grant writing group. METHODS AND MATERIALS: A qualitative interview script was designed using an objectivist approach. Interview questions were arranged into six categories: pre-collaboration, orientation, conflict, emergence, reinforcement and reflection. Interviews were recorded, as were semi-transcribed, detailed field notes. Data collection concluded once a point of saturation had been reached in each of the pre-determined categories of inquiry. ANALYSES: A review and analysis of participant responses were used to formulate general conclusions about the subject. This process allowed the researcher to build a logical interrelationship among themes, and present these in summation along with best practice strategies. RESULTS: Findings were used to build a typology of the roles specific to collaborative grant writing groups, provide a discussion of ideal group composition and leadership, and to identify and suggest ten best practice strategies for organizing and managing grant writing teams during the phases of the collaborative writing process. CONCLUSIONS: The suggested strategies are presented within the framework of Fisher’s (1970) theory of small group decision making in an effort to suggest how they might be deployed at strategic points throughout the process to help such groups work more efficaciously.