Project development grants (PDGs) are essentially grants for new free schools.

At first we did not know who was responsible for PDG data, or what they needed it for.

We knew that there were 74 data fields about PDG in Free Schools Store (FSS).

Our approach

To help us understand more, our service designer looked at SharePoint guidance about PDG. They used this to map-out PDG processes on Lucidspark and suggest a design for our product.

Image included in the h1 'Our approach' section on this post: design-histories.education.gov.uk/manage-free-school-projects/project-development-grant

Image included in the h1 'Our approach' section on this post: design-histories.education.gov.uk/manage-free-school-projects/project-development-grant

We learnt that the Grant Management and Finance Unit (GMFU) are responsible for managing PDGs. However, the desk research did not include the 74 PDG fields in FSS.

To minimise the risk of not creating data fields that GMFU need, we spoke with them to understand their needs and what they use FSS for.

We learnt that:

  • they are responsible for filling-in the majority of FSS PDG fields
  • there are lots of PDG fields that they don't need

We suspected that regional delivery officers were responsible for entering some PDG information, but we were not clear based on the guidance and conversations we had.

New design

Based on what we learnt about PDG and the FSS fields, we sketched a new design on Lucidspark for GMFU to enter PDG data.

We followed a similar approach to other pages in our product, whereby we grouped related fields into Edit pages. For example, an Edit refunds page with fields about what refunds will be made and when.

Image included in the h1 'Our approach' section on this post: design-histories.education.gov.uk/manage-free-school-projects/project-development-grant

We walked through the sketch with GMFU and used it to validate our PDG assumptions and hypotheses. We then used what we learnt to iterate the sketch.

Image included in the h1 'Our approach' section on this post: design-histories.education.gov.uk/manage-free-school-projects/project-development-grant

We built what we had sketched, as we had confidence in the design after speaking with GMFU users about it.

Project development grant (PDG) - Manage free school projects.png Edit Refunds - Manage free school projects.png

User research

We have tested our PDG build with 2 GMFU users. They told us that:

"It's better than what I've seen on KIM [Knowledge Information Management] and how KIM is used."

"It'd be a lot easier to drop someone in who has no knowledge and then be able to use it than the store by a mile."

We also learnt that PDG data is relevant to regional delivery officers. We need to understand their needs and whether our design meets them.