#ProcurementUnconference19

In January I attended Gov Camp. I loved every second of it: the topics, the style, the people. Here’s what I wrote about it.

At Gov Camp a few people approached me to talk about procurement (any opportunity to up sell my profession and convince the naysayers). Some even suggested I put on an Unconference for procurement. Without thinking it through and having never put on an event bigger than a 4 year olds Elsa* party (*from Frozen, see below). I thought why not.

What is the user need?

The first thing I did was ask people what they would want out of such an event and how they would like it to run. I then asked what they would most like the event to cover, when should it take place and whether it should be a paid for or free to attend event. (I did this via LinkedIn and Twitter voting - open, fair and transparent). Lots of feedback was given, responses from buyers, suppliers, academics and my great friends, the lawyers.

From this user research #ProcurementUnconference 19 was born.

 (If you would like to know more about why procurement people should know about their users see this.)

 #ProcurementUnconference is born

Potential attendees chose Monday 17th June as their preferred date so I reached out to secure a venue. The amazing Andrew Dean was quick to respond and provided a brilliant venue at his Clifford Chance office in Canary Wharf.

Slightly concerned that I was doing all of the admin, management and advertising for this event on my own, and that I wanted to participate on the day, I needed to find a facilitator. There was only one person for the job. The highly recommended Lloyd Davis. In short, top facilitator, top chap. Thanks Lloyd for all of your work pre, during and post #ProcurementUnconference19

Through EventBrite the first 50 tickets went quickly and there were various asks for more to be available. This was pushed up to 80, 100 and finally 150. All tickets went a month before the event.

What happened

Attendees started to arrive from 0900 for a 0930 start and most had arrived on time. Once the stragglers had settled in, I said “hello and thanks for coming. Here is Lloyd”.

Lloyd got the party started by asking “who’s ever been to an Unconference before”.

The jeans said “yes”.

The suits said “no”.

After the usual pleasantries over 60 attendees participated in the pitching of topics they wanted to discuss or ideas they wanted to share. A total of 27 things were pitched. (I was delighted). We planned these over 3 sessions so people could have breaks and lunch (thanks again Andrew Dean – very nice lunch indeed).

What was pitched

Here is a list of what was pitched and the sessions in which they were discussed, debated, modeled, shared, etc. For those that have never been to an Unconference please note the freedom of such an event. I strongly recommend this style of event for procurement functions (if you would like to know more to let me know).

Session 1 

How can data improve procurement?

Services not projects

The Public Contracts Regulations 2015 are a disaster

How do you get the best from you lawyer?

Total Cost of Ownership in Lean Agile Procurement

User stories not requirements will give us better procurement

What “Good Practice” looks like in vendor management for digital procurement

Session 2

Agile Procurement Manifesto – how can we speed up time to market?

Is privatisation more efficient and effective?

Moving Beyond Frameworks and Dynamic Purchasing Systems

400% increased time to market with Lean Agile Procurement

Does Social Value have a place in digital procurement? If so what are we measuring?

Joint Procurement/Contract Management Collaboration within Public/Local Gov

Unlocking AI Procurement

How does AI affect procurement?

Building relationships with SMEs under Frameworks, keeping it fair

Session 3

Contract Negotiation in agile procurement (best practice)

Enhancing Capability or Digital (VFM)

FAILCAMP (safe space to unburden yourself)

Gov <3 SME <3 Gov

Running and how it’s helped me become a better Procurement Professional

Digital procurement outcomes – how to cost and stay on budget?

Procuring agile in a waterfall world

Buying outcomes - how to measure the cost of them

Contracting in sprints

Proper chats pre-award - it must be possible

Can we please clarify and simplify approval processes within government?

 What happened?

People broke out in to groups to discuss these topics. There were large and small groups and people voted with their feet (FYI - this was allowed, even in front of their boss).

The day was packed with conversations and sharing of experiences. There was laugher, smiles and high fives (why didn't I get a photo of this: a procurement suit high fiving a jean wearing delivery person).

We ended the day by asking attendees to share what they would be taking away (lots of lessons and the obligatory free pens and notepads). 

Whoever pitched the thing / subject was responsible for running the session and taking notes. Each lead is busy producing their notes from the event, which will be shared with attendees.

Next steps

I took on the action to kick-off #ProcurementHour. Working with Mark Culley we trialled #ProcurementHour on Thursday 27th June at 2000BST. It was successful and we are working with CIPS and others about making this a regular slot. Do let Mark Culley or myself know if you are interested in knowing more.

 Lessons learnt:

-      don’t try and do an event this size on your own

-      don’t put the event on the same day as another procurement event

-      attendees love freebies, especially note pads and pens which included the Procurement Principles

-      acknowledge there will be a drop out rate at free events.

Thank you:

To end I want to say the biggest of thank you’s to the amazing Queen of Procurement Emilia Cedeno who turned up as an attendee and helped so much during the day.

Also, thank you to the sponsors:

Advice Cloud

Agile Business Consortium

Clifford Chance

Difrent

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