Intended audience: DataKind Volunteers
The Design Checkpoint is the point at which the team officially decides whether or not to take on a project. This decision is made by the advisory team (i.e., Chapter Leader(s), DataKind staff support person, etc.).
Review Process
The advisory team will review the results of the Design Stage documented in the Project Brief. For funded projects, before the Checkpoint, your staff point of contact will create a task assigned to the heads of the data science and tech teams to review key documents (Project Brief and Sustainability Report).
After responding to suggestions and feedback and resolving the task, the Checkpoint can proceed. It’s important these reviews happen before content is shared with partners, so be sure to allow enough time for teams to respond to suggestions before scheduling partner presentations.
Checkpoint
The Design Checkpoint can be a meeting, email, or slack message.
As the advisory team, we carefully check that all Design stage steps were considered and there are no red flags that could lead to project failure. Don’t be afraid to ask clarifying questions! Keep in mind that this Design Checkpoint is also a decision point for the partner organization. Ensure you are using language to clearly communicate the experience they should expect working with DataKind.
Unique to this Design Checkpoint is that this is the point to bring in the technology team to identify tech synergies and how platform needs might map to existing DataKind tech infrastructure for this project.
See Intro to Checkpoints for a reminder on how all Checkpoints are conducted and how to prepare for them. If you have any questions or need support, please reach out to your staff support person.
Agenda template (feel free to edit based on your specific needs!):
- Review and discuss what has been done so far, the Project Brief, and the steps completed
- Ask questions about the project and explain any unclear documentation as needed
- Make formal decision on whether or not to move into the next stage
- Discuss and agree on next steps
- Go over and answer questions on all steps necessary between now and the next Checkpoint
- Answer any lingering questions
To conclude the Checkpoint, Chapter Leaders and/or staff should make sure that all project information is up-to-date in Salesforce. Projects that are not pursued should clearly document the reasoning in Salesforce, in case the partner reaches out to DataKind again later.
Contributer(s): Benjamin Kinsella, Bhargav Kowshik, Matthew Harris, Arina Igumenshcheva, Michael Wegan
Contact us
If you would like to learn more about us, partner with us, or get in touch, email us at community@datakind.org
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