Proposal Pitfalls: Timelines and Milestones

SBIR/STTR Success: Timelines and Milestones for NIH Funding

It's 3 am and your mind is racing about your SBIR/STTR application. You know you have a good project, but how will you ensure your research and develop tasks are accounted for and conveyed to a federal granting agency? Don't fret! Effective timelines and milestones will help you not only successfully complete your project but will also help the reviewers understand your proposal increasing the likelihood your project being funded. Conveying a comprehensive, clear and concise project plan to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) can be daunting. This is precisely where an SBIR grant writing consultant, like Blue Haven Grant Consultants (BHGC), assists you in developing and presenting these plans, increasing your chances of securing NIH federal funding.

Developing Effective Milestones

Milestones are measurable outcomes conveying key stepping stones toward your overall project’s objective. Effective milestones possess several key characteristics. They are clearly stated, quantitative, measurable, and additive. For instance, compare an ineffective milestone such as "device operates as expected " to an effective one like "device operates for at least 30 days with 2x greater performance than the control standard-of-care.” The latter provides a specific and measurable target, demonstrating progress.

Developing Effective Timelines

Timelines are vital for organizing milestones and tasks to successfully complete a project. Before arranging the tasks by time, you must first identify all of the milestones and tasks in the project. It then makes sense to assign reasonable timeframes for each of these tasks. Once complete, you can arrange them into a feasible timeline that highlights dependencies and creates meaningful deadlines that will keep your team on target. 

Creating a visualization of your timeline is a very effective planning aid. For example, a simple Gantt Chart will help you and your team see progress and the bigger picture as you focus on specific tasks and work toward milestones. Visualizations also highlight the interdependence of teams and people that can ensure more efficient project execution. 

Blue Haven Grant Consultants specializes in helping researchers like you present a cohesive timeline and well-defined milestones in your grant application. We have over a decade of experience developing milestones and timelines for successful projects and conveying that planning to federal granting agencies like the NIH. We also know that each project is unique, therefore a one-size-fits-all approach to planning rarely provides effective solutions.  If you think your unique project would benefit from BHGC expertise, contact us to set up a consultation.