Lean agile procurement delivers for Dunedin City Council

New Zealand’s Dunedin City Council (DCC) has adopted the Lean Agile Procurement (LAP) approach when selecting a new Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) solution.

DCC represents 114,347 citizens living in Dunedin, the South Island’s second-largest city. Procurement in local government with a cumulative value of over $100,000 requires an open and competitive procurement process and the procurement of a CLM solution was expected to exceed that threshold.

In DCC’s experience, a complex software systems sourcing project would take an average of three months. The council had previously encountered problems procuring complex Software as a Service (SaaS) technology solutions and chose to leverage lean agile procurement as the sourcing tool to better identify the type of software partner it wanted to work with. Ultimately opting for a platform from Portt (an Advanced company), DCC was able to reduce the usual procurement process from three months to three days using the LAP approach.

The process included a two-day LAP off-site event, where DCC’s desired outcomes were outlined and Portt was given the opportunity to then frame recommendations accordingly. The exchanges between the two teams using the LAP process helped scope the requirements and identify the ultimate solution to reach DCC’s objectives.

“The importance of using the face-to-face agile process to allow for an honest ‘up-front’ conversation on scope and having Portt challenge and test our thinking [which] was essential to getting the right outcome for this critical project for the council, cannot be underestimated,” said Robert West, General Manager, Dunedin City Council.

“We came away from a two-day intensive process with all the terms of the deal agreed, a signed contract and a working relationship between the council and Portt staff already established. What more could we ask for? A great result,” he said.

The partnership approach gave DCC early confidence that Portt’s working style would be complementary to the way its own team operated and this would contribute to a positive long-term working relationship.

“Both DCC and Portt leaned into the two-day event even before the contract was awarded and this approach has allowed for open communication and problem-solving, resulting in a collaborative and trusted environment where both parties could build a strong relationship,” said Serge Kolman, Procurement & Contracts Manager at Dunedin City Council.

The strong relationship set a solid foundation for future collaboration, with both organisations expecting to work together in a collaborative, cooperative and flexible manner throughout the Portt CLM implementation, which started in January and was completed by end of June.

Using the LAP process delivered significant benefits to Portt, as the typical cost to respond to a public tender was reduced by 40%, and the enterprise sales cycle was also reduced by half.

“From the supplier side, the significance of the investment required to input into the LAP process versus the more traditional way of running a tender process was far less,” said Mark Reddy, Head of Growth for Spend Management at Portt.

“To put it into context, the process took days, not months, to complete and as we were able to work closely with the project team and stakeholders, this resulted in an immediate clear direction which we could all move forward with,” he said.

Image credit: iStock.com/Parradee Kietsirikul