Overview

Congratulations on winning Innovate UK funding for your project! That's never easy.I've set up this website to help us make the Project Monitoring Process a little easier.I'm Michael Kohn, appointed as the Monitoring Service Provider (MSP) for your project. Historically this role is also known as Monitoring Officer (MO).I bid to monitor your project because I found the concept interesting and hope I might make ask some useful questions or offer insights for you and the team to consider.Whilst I have a portfolio of up to 30 projects to monitor at any one time, I hope a the system I have designed will work smoothly for us both, will help you focus on delivering your project and ensure you get swift approvals and subsequent payments of your grant.

Scope of Monitoring

It's important to know that MSPs are completely independent of InnovateUK.I have signed a services contract with InnovateUK in order to provide monitoring and support to project teams. This breaks down to the following activities across the project lifecycle:

Project Set Up

LIVE PROJECT PHASE

PROJECT CLOSE

Monitoring Reports

As your MSP, I will need to report every 3 months on your innovation project progress. The reports are read and approved by the Innovation Lead for the call that your project was successful in. Each report consists of short summaries of progress and giving your project a score in the following 6 areas, coupled with a project progress summary.

SCOPE

TIME

COSTS

EXPLOITATION

RISKS

PROJECT PLANNING

Monitoring Website

This is a single page app website, and you will need to always go back to the main menu to navigate to different sections.I've included some information to help you understand the monitoring process, including an FAQ section which I am building as different project teams ask me questions.The are Airtable forms to upload your documents for my review prior to meetings.There are meeting booking links for the different kinds of meetings which I will host.I also run a ticketing help desk system via this website to answer your question in a timely fashion.Hopefully this website will be valuable to us both. It's probably not perfect yet though, so I'll be improving this site with feedback over time. Let me know if you have any difficulties using it.

My Expertise

My professional qualifications are in architecture. I qualified and practised as an architect from 2000-2015, with an overlapping career in innovation, technology and business, starting my first business in 2006.I maintain an interest and network across innovation in the built environment, design for ageing population, health and care innovation with a focus on diet and diabetes.I have 15 years experience in digital innovation, and I've run a small B2B SaaS start up across a decade, selling to public sector organisations. I am a non technical founder, but I am now active in the nocode space and make simple websoftware and portals.I also work with universities helping academics navigate the innovation funding landscape and collaborate successfully with SMEsI try to follow principles of lean start up for most business applications, and believe that a disciplined and scientific "lean innovation" practice will help innovators achieve impactful results faster.Innovation is not easy. I know this from experience. As your MSP, I try to be as supportive and do my best to offer the most appropriate advice to each project and each situation.

Project Set Up Overview

Here's the video from InnovateUK that explains Project Set Up phase. I include a little more narrative below.

** Innovation Funding Service (IFS) and this website**

The Innovation Funding Service (IFS) Portal tracks your project through its lifecycle. That is administered by Innovate UK. I have a role to play in reviewing and approving project claims and change requests, and I can't make changes to what you upload.In contrast this website is controlled by me as your project MSP. It has been set up to streamline the process of how you enable me to monitor your project, get fast approvals and swift payments of claims.I've included some useful information, some tools to book meetings, and I run a ticketing help desk system to answer everyone's questions in a timely fashion.Hopefully this site will be valuable to us both, and I'll be improving this site with feedback from the project teams I work with.

Finance Checks

Innovation UK finance team will carry out their due diligence checks on all organisations that they are funding.In my role as MSP, **I don't see their questions to you, nor do I view the submissions that you make to them. **I cannot advise how to present your information to them, but I do recommend answering questions as quickly and thoroughly as possible. It is also better to submit some evidence and let them come back for more if needed, rather than wait till you have all the answers.The finance team are constantly busy all year round.

Start Preparing Baseline Documents

Baseline documents are needed to understand how you plan your project. They help monitor project progress, ensure it stays on track and in scope, and help you communicate your progress to the MSP.You may be required to upload some baseline documents to the IFS portal, for instance a commercialisation plan, and maybe a collaboration agreement. What you are asked to upload is up to InnovateUK.However, I will need some basic information to understand what you are trying to do, so it is important to crack on and start preparing these during the Set Up period. I don't need to see completed documents, but I do need to see drafts before your first Kick Off Meeting.

Spend Profiles

The Spend profile provides the basis of your forecasting across the entire project. The official spend profile is saved on the IFS portal on your project. You can edit future quarters, but not the current one.It is important you spend some time in Set Up to create a realistic spend profile that relates to your project plan, and if also takes in any cashflow constraints.Also note Innovate UK's finance team will pre-populate your spend profile for you to check, usually dividing different spend category costs between each category. You need to review and potentially change the profile to reflect your planned expenditure for the project.

Collaboration Agreements

If your project has partners, you will need to upload a Collaboration Agreement (CA). This can take a lot of time to create, negotiate and sign, depending upon each organisation.So you do need to start that as early as possible.I cannot advise on your Collaboration Agreement, but I will need to review and approve a signed version if you are asked to submit one.If your organisation is the sole organisation in the project, or you are working only with subcontractors then you won't need one.

Document Review

I need to see and review your project information before we meet. Some information you can upload to directly to the IFS (e.g. financial claim evidence). However for baseline (pre- Kick Off) material, or Draft Project Progress Reports and Project Plan updates, this is where to upload prior to the meetings.

Project Plans

The project plan is the key document you will use in claims meetings to present your progress to me.The project plan is also a document that should be updated as you go along. Revised plans will be submitted as dated versions to compare against the plan form the previous quarter.
Your project plan can be a format of your choosing, but you are welcome to use the template supplied by InnovateUK.In the least, it should include a list of work packages and their owners, including subtasks, deadlines, a list of deliverables also indicating the format for presenting evidence of the deliverables, key milestones for the overall project.A Gantt chart should be included so you can see how these tasks compare and we can see any critical path and interdependencies between tasks.

Risk Register

The Risk Register can be created from your application, and developed as you progress your project.There are many different formats that different project management teams use. As your MSP, I am open to seeing the one you prefer to use.

How to create a simple risk register

Keep it updated

The Risk Register needs to be updated as you go along, and since you are scored on the risks,Since risks are always better crowdsourced from different team members, it makes sense to use a format that can be shared easily with the team.

Exploitation Plan

The Exploitation Plan is a very important document and one that you are also scored on at each claim. The exploitation plan records your ideas and plans to commercialise your innovation, and again one that should be revised and updated.There may be sensitive information, that even under NDA, you do not wish to share outside of your organisation.Don't worry, you just need to share information that makes a credible case that you are likely to be able to commercialise your innovation and make the kind of profits that justify InnovateUK's public investment in your project.The actual execution of commercialisation is usually beyond the project end, but you should record your activities that are part of the project to be ready for this.There is some guidance from Innovate UK in the templates and guides table.

Forecast Summary (optional)

If you need to get the spend profile approved in a hurry, in order to sign a GoL within the permitted timeframe, the fast track way is to submit a narrative explaining the spend profile.This helps me understand you have considered your spend profile before submitting, and for instance it explains a change in labour costs, or the likely uneven distribution of claims across different quarters.To do this, submit a PDF of the profile from a spreadsheet or a screenshot of the numbers on IFS, and then add commentary in the dialogue. This was I can understand your numbers and pattern of spend, without needing to see the completed project plan until you have prepared it.

Downloads

The table has templates and guides from Innovate UK and other sources that you can download To view and download, click on the individual row.

Quick Hello

An optional Zoom meeting to meet me during Project Set up stage.

This meeting is entirely optional and some projects skip it to get to a project kick off meeting. However it can be helpful if it's your first time winning InnovateUK funding.

• Book Quick Hello Meeting

Advisory Meeting

Optional 20minute Zoom meeting to seek advice from the Monitoring Service Provider when you simply need to talk it through rather than raising a query.

Only book this if you feel you can't describe the problem in email or on the support desk.

• Book Advisory Meeting

Need some help?

IMPORTANT:
Please include your PROJECT NUMBER in the subject line when submitting a help request.

You can include several points on a related support request, but it is best to create a separate ticket for unrelated questions or requests for help.