PD Newsletter #23: Internet era ways of working for digital procurement

Hello, I’m David. I’m Public Digital's procurement specialist, guest editing the newsletter this time around.

Procurement doesn't have to be complex or slow. But years of legal challenge, supplier failings and organisational atrophy can make buying things harder than it should be. There are some really good procurement professionals working to make the subject less of a blocker. I'm happy to be able to share some of this good work with you.

One procurement development I've been really pleased to see is the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS) starting to talk about ‘Digitalisation’. This is an important first step in creating a recognised community for people procuring digital services.

This University of Melbourne report outlines 11 digital enablers in which the procurement profession needs to be part of the multidisciplinary delivery team. There are major opportunities for procurement to drive industry 4.0 and I hope CIPS continue to help procurement deliver digital services.

I hope you find this procurement focus interesting, and if you would like to know more about making procurement less painful, please do get in touch.

David

@Kershaw_MCIPS

david@public.digital

🚀 Forwarded this email? Sign-up.

Procuring MedTech

Outside of Public Digital, I've been working on MedTech procurement. With the rise of e-Health apps, wearable devices and digital identity verification it is important procurement keeps up. Procurement can make sure an individuals e-Health record is protected through appropriate contracting and enshrining privacy rights. Buying teams can design flexible procurement processes to enable iterative delivery and scaling.

With this in mind here are a few articles I found interesting and helpful:

10 years and USD $36 billion later: a long read on where US Electronic Health Records Went Wrong A new report maps the MedTech landscape for innovators in England, including some helpful tips on defining cost-benefits for business cases.

Can you trust AI symptom checkers? Putting NHS 111, Ada and Babylon to the test.

Artificial Intelligence Meets Clinical Reality, from HIMSS Insights, an eBook focussed on finding real use cases for AI in healthcare.

Internet era ways of working for digital procurement

👇
Emilio Franco’s primer on Agile Procurement for the Public Sector looks at how agility can be used in public procurement practices, while holding true to the fundamentals of fairness, openness, and transparency. It can be done.

😀
Users are for procurement too: If you want to make procurement in your organisation better, then start with your own buying community. Find out who your users are (it will make procurement better).

🚤
Mirko Kleiner provides a case study of how to procure quicker whilst testing products and services with potential partners before signing contracts.

🏗
Constructing Internet-era contracts: A podcast with Daphne Perry on how to construct contracts, make them easier to understand and get your user community to champion better contracts.

Recommended events

👋
I'm organising the Procurement Unconference 2019, taking place on 17th June in London, UK. This event will bring together an eclectic group of people from both public and private sectors to discuss the procurement challenges surrounding digital, data, and technology. As you would expect, the focus will be on delivery.

👋😊
The #OneTeamGov movement is putting on two interesting events later this year. The first is the #OneTeamGovGlobal 2019 event on 21st May in Victoria, Canada. The second is a bureaucracy hack on 3rd July, in London, UK. Strongly recommended. I'll be attending both and I'd love to say hello.

Government news

#SGPayments: The Scottish government have set up a small team to take a look at how they make and receive payments. They've shared their first steps: starting small and iterating from there.*

No change here: I’m thinking about public procurement post-Brexit. In particular, ensuring any future revisions to the current UK legislation explicitly acknowledges ‘digital’ as a unique category. Unfortunately, nothing much will really change, in the short term at least. I can dream.

Emma presenting to the team in Nova Scotia about product management in practice.

News from Public Digital

James has published part 3 of being an Internet-era CTO: What does it mean to be good at technology?

Andrew and Emma visited Nova Scotia, where Public Digital have been helping Service Nova Scotia develop a digital strategy.

Now, they are in Victoria, B.C. Pictured here talking to the BC CSI lab.

We’ve signed up for the Contract for the Web. #ForTheWeb

From our partners at IDEO: The London office are looking for a software lead to help shape and lead IDEO’s digital practice. There's also a new senior technologist role heading up digital transformation in Shanghai. As a happy bonus you get to work with us, too.