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Listen
Project Start -Up
Quicklinks
The User Intelligence Group
Stakeholder Mapping
Project Planning
Review and Sign-off
Risk Management
The User Intelligence Group
For any procurement exercise to succeed it is important that key stakeholders from across the participating organisation are involved in developing the strategy for the commodity to be procured. This will help ensure that the resulting contract meets the end-users' requirements and, as a result, should lead to greater levels of contract compliance. To achieve a sufficient level of stakeholder involvement, a cross-functional team, or User Intelligence Group should be established to develop the commodity strategy. This group should have representation from all key stakeholders within the participating organisation and should include not only the contracts and procurement representitives but also key stakeholders and service users from across the participating organisations.
To ensure that the initial UIG meeting is as productive as possible there is some research that Commodity Managers can carry out prior to the first meeting of a UIG to gain an understanding of the commodity, for example:
- Gaining an understanding of the market for a commodity from desktop research, e.g. via the internet
- Speaking to supplier representitives
- Having meetings with individual key stakeholders and end-users prior to the first UIG
- Gathering information from other public sector contracts, such as OGCbuyingsolutions
- Reading previous tenders or strategies
Such research will help commodity managers to gain an initial understanding of the key characteristics of the commodity, of the organisation's requirements and of the market conditions as well as of some of the risks, issues and barriers to success that they may face.
User Intelligence Groups may have to be created entirely from scratch, or may incorporate members of existing user's groups. The purpose of the User Intelligence Group is to build a thorough understanding of the commodity characteristics, to develop commodity strategies based upon analysis of data, to implement changes and to monitor performance continuously.
Stakeholder Mapping
Where there is a large number of potential stakeholders, for example when developing a strategy for a collaborative contract, it may not be possible to have all stakeholders represented on the UIG. In these circumstances, Stakeholder Mapping is a useful technique to identify who should be represented based upon their likely impact upon the success of the project and their level of engagement.
Example Stakeholder Map
A stakeholder map used in conjunction with the degree of engagement model below is also a useful tool for the UIG to plan communications to stakeholders who are not UIG members.
Degree of Engagement Model
It is important to note that commodity strategy work is an ongoing process and continues after the strategy is developed and implemented. A subset of the User Intelligence Group needs to then be assigned to carry out the ongoing activities of supplier relationship management, monitoring implementation and compliance and benefits tracking. Some of the key characteristics of a successful UIG are shown in the attached slide.
Key Characteristics of User Intelligent Groups
A project charter should be defined by the User Intelligence Group lead at the beginning of each commodity strategy development undertaking. This provides clear guidelines and terms of reference for the UIG in terms of:
Example User Intelligence Group Charter
Members of User Intellligence Groups should not underestimate the amount of time and commitment involved in being a team member. Although the team itself may typically meet only fortnightly or monthly there will be work to be completed in-between meetings and members should come to meetings fully prepared.
The template below can be used to to record UIG membership and contact details.
UIG Membership Template
Project Planning
The Commodity Planning tool above supports the development and implementation of the procurement strategy by tracking the activities involved. It provides a method of assessing when benefits are most likely to be delivered. Tools such as Microsoft Project are useful for developing Gantt charts to aid project planning.
By using project plans, it is possible to manage the development and implementation of the sourcing strategy. The UIG should work with the Commodity Manager and complete a project report. The frequency of reporting may vary from organisation to organisation and project to project depending on issues such as:
- The risk and complexity of the project
- The structure and culture of the contracting authority
Review and Sign-off points
In any project it is good practice for progress and plans to be reviewed at key stages by someone independent of the project team. There are natural break points within the Toolkit that can be used as review points for sign -off and approval to proceed to the next stage of the process. Suggested review and sign off points are shown in the attached process flowchart.
The reviewer could be a a senior manager or project sponsor, or alternatively could be be made up of members of a different User Intelligence Group, with a member of the contracting authority's senior management team providing sign-off and approval to proceed to the next stage. Whoever does the review should have the skills necessary to act as a "critical friend" and offer advice, guidance and support to the UIG.
For high risk, mission critical projects a more formal review process may be required. The Gateway Review process was introduced by the Office of Government Commerce ( OGC) as a means of providing independent assurance to such projects at up to six key decision points in their lifetime. In simple terms, it is a review of an acquisition programme or procurement project carried out at a key decision point by a team of experienced people, independent of the project team. The McClelland Review of Public Procurement in Scotland recommended that adoption of the Gateway Review process should be mandatory for major capital and capital-related projects.
Full details of the Gateway Review process are outside the scope of this toolkit, however if you believe that your project could benefit from using the Gateway Review process, more information is available from the Construction Procurement Manual, under Value for Money
All risks or issues affecting the successful development and deployment of the commodity strategy must be highlighted by the group and captured by the group lead in a risk register. The issues raised must be grouped into risks and issues and prioritised accordingly:
- An issue is a factor affecting the development or the implementation of the commodity strategy at the present time. Actions are therefore immediately put in place to resolve the issue due to its urgency.
- A risk can be defined as an impending factor that may affect the development or implementation of the commodity strategy at a future date. The purpose of capturing these in the present is so that mitigating actions can be put in place to avoid the risk becoming an issue.
The risk register is used to capture issues and risks, all of which should have clear solutions, actions, owners and a resolution date. Risks and issues should be fed into a central risk register so that any ovelap may be recognised. A risks and issues template is included in the Project Report pro forma above.
More detailed guidance on risk can be found by reading the the Scottish Executive guidance on Risk Management in the Procurement Process and Strategic Risk Management.
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