Data point: I’ve had a few times now where people asked me to apply for money on very short deadlines but implied lower rigor. Unless I had a shovel ready project I happened to not have funding for, the process has always felt bad and I end up withdrawing. Somehow it always starts as “blue sky slush fund, just give us some ideas” and ends with commitments to do pretty particular things I haven’t thought out well and have been optimized more for legibility and ease of cost estimates than value.
Everyone involved meant well and I think partially this is caused by a lack of skill, which can be remedied. Now that I’ve noticed and named the pattern I expect to be less susceptible to it in the future. But I do think this reflects a systemic issue that I hope we fix long term.
Data point: I’ve had a few times now where people asked me to apply for money on very short deadlines but implied lower rigor. Unless I had a shovel ready project I happened to not have funding for, the process has always felt bad and I end up withdrawing. Somehow it always starts as “blue sky slush fund, just give us some ideas” and ends with commitments to do pretty particular things I haven’t thought out well and have been optimized more for legibility and ease of cost estimates than value.
Everyone involved meant well and I think partially this is caused by a lack of skill, which can be remedied. Now that I’ve noticed and named the pattern I expect to be less susceptible to it in the future. But I do think this reflects a systemic issue that I hope we fix long term.