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Posting procurement data publicly is a powerful tool for governments looking to transform their procurement processes. In this workshop we will explore how the principles of the open data movement—which aims to make government data available to the public, free of charge, with no restrictions on use, and easy to access—apply to procurement data, including questions such as:

This event is especially designed for cities pursuing What Works Cities certification, and will provide support in meeting the RDC7 criterion.

Are you finding it difficult to communicate the fundamental principles of public procurement to a wide range of stakeholders in your jurisdiction, including new hires, user departments, and elected officials? You are not alone!

The Procurement Excellence Network held a training that taught attendees how to break down complex procurement topics into relatable, digestible content for audiences new to procurement. Through real-world case studies on engaging political stakeholders, upskilling new hires, and empowering user department, our participants learned how peer jurisdictions have successfully demystified public procurement through Procurement 101 trainings, leading to greater understanding, collaboration, and trust among all stakeholders.

Attendees left this session with actionable takeaways, including a sample one-hour procurement 101 training agenda, and best practices for building stakeholder buy-in. If you want to sharpen your communication skills and help stakeholders to see procurement not just as a compliance function but as a driver of strategic impact in your jurisdiction, we encourage you to watch the recording of this training event!

Immediately following the event, an optional 30-minute open forum was held for attendees to ask questions and share best practices. 

Are you looking to improve your vendor certification program to align with your overall procurement equity strategy? Is your jurisdiction aiming to make certification processes more accessible and less burdensome for businesses?

The Procurement Excellence Network hosted a training session that explored the benefits and challenges of vendor certification programs. In this interactive session, we discussed 1) how to assess whether to launch a new certification or leverage reciprocal certification opportunities, 2) how to examine an existing certification program to streamline and reduce burdens placed on businesses, and 3) how to move beyond a certification program to support certified firms to meaningfully participate in upcoming contracting opportunities.

Whether you're just beginning to consider vendor certification or looking to improve an existing program, this session provided practical tools to support making procurement processes more equitable and accessible to disadvantaged businesses.

Immediately following the event, an optional 30-minute open forum was held for attendees to ask questions and share best practices.

Has your government ever attempted to launch a procurement reform, only to encounter resistance from stakeholders?

Implementing change in any organization can be challenging. In public procurement, it can be especially tricky due to competing priorities and comfort with traditional ways of operating. The Procurement Excellence Network facilitated a training on change management and overcoming obstacles in driving procurement transformation within your government.

In this training session, we explored diagnostic and analytical tools to help you identify and move past barriers to implementing reforms. These strategies will help you to take a creative approach to change management by considering the motivations driving various stakeholders, including individuals, departments, and vendors.

 

Post-Event Session: We held an optional 30-minute discussion following the event for open dialogue with peer governments and GPL experts on experiences, best practices, and strategies for navigating change management challenges.

When vendors have positive experiences engaging with government, government delivers better results. Understanding vendor pain points is a core strategy in improving procurement operations and in attracting a larger, more diverse group of suppliers.

The Procurement Excellence Network (PEN) held a training event on best practices for designing, distributing, and analyzing data from vendor surveys. This session covered designing surveys that are free of bias, lowering the burden of vendor participation, and set procurement teams up for success in analyzing survey responses.

We provided take-home tangible tools and examples to aid participants in launching their own vendor survey (e.g., template questions, sample outreach emails, and analysis plans).

Are you looking to train your department or agency staff on a procurement process, policy or new initiative—such as the basics of procurement in your government, how to write an RFP, or how to form an evaluation committee—but unsure where to start? While you could queue up a slide deck and talk to your staff for an hour, it’s unlikely that that is going to result in clear understanding and actionable next steps.

The Procurement Excellence Network (PEN) hosted a session on how to design and deliver procurement trainings effectively to agencies and departments. An effective training is designed with information that is presented in digestible chunks, built logically, and engaging for your staff to get involved. We provided strategies and tips to reach your audience where they’re at.

Actively managing contracts is a crucial technique that helps your government improve the quality of goods it procures and services it provides to residents. Without strong contract management practices, you could see poor-quality service, missed deadlines, unfulfilled deliverables, or unspent sums.

This training provided strategies to help attendees apply contract management techniques appropriately for different types of contracts, as well as new ways of working collaboratively with their vendors, understanding strategies for shifting their contract management approach from one that’s compliance-oriented to one centered on improved performance.

Are you struggling with how to address an overly administrative, confusing, and lengthy contracting process? Process mapping is an excellent first step toward cutting down cycle times and engaging members across different departments to jumpstart procurement reform. Process maps help you come to a shared understanding of all steps involved in a procurement process and foster discussion around which of those steps are creating more strain than value. Once you understand the problem areas, you can better design and implement meaningful solutions.

This training covered the mechanics of process mapping and how it can be an asset to your procurement transformation efforts. We shared tips for beginning process mapping and included sample slides that attendees could use for their own process mapping exercise.

Feeling overwhelmed by the number of low-stake solicitations your central purchasing team has to review? Receiving complaints from department partners that your formal purchasing process is slowing them down? One cause might be inadequate purchasing thresholds, or the dollar values at which the purchasing rules change within your jurisdiction. Purchasing thresholds are an important guardrail for your procurement process, but tricky to get right: set too low, your purchasing thresholds can majorly slow you down; but set too high, and your thresholds may open you up to greater risk of noncompliance or not provide a fair opportunity for vendors to compete.

This training was a breakdown of what you need to know about effective purchasing thresholds – including when to modify them and when to leave them be. We helped attendees evaluate if their purchasing thresholds were right for their jurisdiction, provided strategies for creating purchasing thresholds that maximize efficiency, and shared examples of governments that have modified their purchasing thresholds to better fit their needs. And if they did decide to adjust their purchasing thresholds, we also covered best practices for making the case to their governing authority.  

Do you want to diversify your vendor pool but are unsure where to start? Are you struggling to meaningfully move the needle on the number of contracts and dollars going to diverse, small, or local firms? In many cases, governments aren’t issuing contracting opportunities that small, local, firms and those led by women or people of color can reasonably bid on due to the sheer size of the contract. Breaking large contracts apart into smaller scopes of work is a promising practice to make opportunities available to firms who otherwise wouldn’t be able to compete. However, this strategy can encounter resistance from contract managers because of the additional work involved in being responsible for more contracts. In this training, we covered the basics of unbundling, how to prioritize contracts for unbundling, and best practices for successful contract management.

Is it possible that your jurisdiction’s approach to IT procurement – like the technology itself – needs a refresh? While IT spending continues to rise every year as governments prioritize cybersecurity, data governance, and infrastructure modernization, technology can also be one of the most difficult things for state and local governments to procure.

This training shared best practices around how to write requirements for tech projects that help vendors understand the problem you’re trying to solve rather than "solutioning,” how to connect with users and other stakeholders to understand the challenges they face, and how to collaborate with your IT department, procurement team, and the department procuring the technology to understand the goals and outcomes you have for the new technology. Through this problem-based approach to IT procurement, we discussed how to productively engage with the IT marketplace, tools for market research, and tips for expanding IT vendor diversity and competition. In addition, we covered current thinking about the best ways to “de-risk” large IT projects.

Are you struggling with how to address an overly administrative, confusing, and lengthy contracting process? Process mapping is an excellent first step toward cutting down cycle times and engaging members across different departments to jumpstart procurement reform. Process maps help you come to a shared understanding of all steps involved in a procurement process and foster discussion around which of those steps are creating more strain than value. Once you understand the problem areas, you can better design and implement meaningful solutions.

This training covered the mechanics of process mapping and how it can be an asset to your procurement transformation efforts. We shared tips for beginning process mapping and included sample slides you can use for your own process mapping exercise.

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