Founded in 1997, Nebraska Children and Families Foundation supports children, young adults, and families with the goal of giving kids what they need to thrive. Nebraska Children and Families Foundation is Nebraska’s solution for strengthening families so children can reach their full potential. The non-profit organization is funded through the Family Preservation and Support Act.
The Challenge
In June of 2017, Nebraska Children had partnered with another non-profit for the development of a life coaching app. The goal of the project was to develop a mobile app that youth could use to communicate with their support network. It would allow them to store information, book appointments, log journal entries, and many other features.
By the time Nebraska Children had reached out to me the project was past the deadline and there were disagreements about the deliverables and remaining timeline. Unfortunately, this is a pretty typical situation for IT projects.
Nebraska Children engaged me to help them determine two things:
- Are they getting what they paid for?
- Determine what the next steps should be
The Process
After initial interviews with the Nebraska Children staff, I started to dive into the contracts that were in place. I wanted to get as much background on the project as I could. The contracts allowed me to see what both parties agreed to and outlined what the expected deliveries were.
Once the contract review was completed, I performed a gap analysis on the app. Nebraska Children was able to give me access to the app and the backend. I mapped out the functionality within the app and compared it to what the contracts said were required deliverables.
Finally, I put together a timeline of the completed project and future milestones. This gave me a complete picture of deliverables and the expectations for features going forward. Once again, I compared the timeline against the milestones outlined in the contracts. This way I could tell if the project was being delivered on time and if future deliverables were reasonable.
The Results
In the end, I was able to deliver a report to Nebraska Children’s that detailed what I had found. I was able to highlight specific examples where the other party was not meeting their obligations under the contract. The report also provided clear recommendations for going forward. Ultimately, their decision allowed them to save money and move forward in a positive direction.
“Thank you for your time and expertise to help us at Nebraska Children to make an informed decision. Your work was extremely valuable in helping us better understand the messages and options we had.” Jason Feldhaus, Vice President of Connected Youth Initiative.