1.
Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat
Open First Whitepaper
Process code for software procurement
1b. Capacity-building
This section will help you:
Align departments and facilitate collaboration
Prioritize a new role: the Product Owner
Common challenges
You may encounter these frictions as you do the work of capacity building. These are challenges the Recommended actions are designed to solve, or that may arise as you take those actions.
Departmental silos
Software procurement falls between existing siloed business units. It should include, for example, legal, IT, end users, budgeting and procurement professionals. Who owns the process? Transitioning to cross-departmental protocols and standards requires process change management that is independent of the implicated departments.
Inadequate or obsolete job descriptions
There is no formal role or job description for a product owner—particularly one focused on software—in the public sector. It is often the case that an individual champion will take on the responsibility of managing software projects “off the side of their desk,” which can lead to burnout or lost knowledge if that person leaves.
Insufficient time
Staff who could learn from and contribute to ongoing conversations about procurement process reform do not have the time to attend workshops and contribute, in addition to their daily job requirements.
Divergent or conflicting departmental agendas
These cause misalignment in priorities and friction before and during the software procurement and development process—particularly when it comes to the details of scoping features or budgeting.
Recommended actions
1. Training and designating product owners
The central figure in an effective software procurement is the product owner (also known as a project manager or business analyst). This person shepherds the procurement process. They will be working across and independently from existing business units. They embed with a department (end users) and bring back specific requirements. They have analytical and design thinking skills.
Hire (or designate and train) product owners
Especially in a small administration, this might not be a full time job. In that case, the product owner might be an IT professional, for example, but take on the role of managing a procurement process, from orientation to maintenance.
Attracting talent
Technical staffing is one of the greatest perceived barriers to open source adoption. Few
government organizations have full-time staff (at leadership and implementation levels)
with the skills and knowledge to procure, build, and maintain software. As a result, governments
rely on vendors, often leading to vendor lock-in, ballooning costs and hidden fees, and loss of
control over functionalities, updates and compliance.
However, hiring and retaining talented IT professionals is easier in an organization that is open
source first:
Open source software is widely used by companies, from development to production. That means
talent focus on developing capacity to use it, and seek opportunities to enhance their working
knowledge for career advancement.
By contributing to open source software projects, individuals become part of a public “network of
trust” and add to their resumes.
Many people report that working with open source software improves their job satisfaction because
they are contributing to a massive community project (source code fixes, bug reports, documentation updates, etc).
Open source software provides learning opportunities, because contributors have access to
“everything running under the hood” and can learn from more experienced developers.
2. Building familiarity with software and procurement
Champions of procurement innovation and software are key central figures that help their colleagues become familiar with new ideas. They ensure that everyone involved is able to ask the right questions, identify the right outcomes, and have a basic knowledge of the fundamental principles of modern software design.
Read through this guide, and the additional resources in sections you are responsible for
If you are the product owner or procurement innovation lead, you should be an expert in the process, and answer questions for others.
Designate a procurement innovation lead
This person is passionate about procurement. They can lead workshops, answer questions, and work closely with specific departments on how they can support new approaches to procurement.
Review past software procurements
Ask how have they been successful, and what could have been better. Don’t speculate—actually ask users who use that product or who were involved in procuring it.
3. Reaching out to individuals and departments
Several individuals, departments and agencies need to build or adapt their existing norms and processes in order to effectively support software procurement. That will mean building new skills, shifting day to day tasks, and creating new processes and templates. Procurement should involve: digital or IT; any number of direct service delivery departments (for example traffic and parking); procurement; budgeting or accounting; and legal.
Reach out to individuals in a variety of business units, especially those who have been involved with procurement in the past
Discuss some of the key ideas in this guide, and show them how future software procurement processes can support their own objectives.
4. Hosting workshops and finding champions
A great way to reach out to many individuals across different departments is to host a workshop or lunch-and-learn session. Here, you can share the basics of procurement and software development. Demystify the process, answer questions, and debunk preconceptions. Emphasize the primary objective—acquiring better products and services—and the positive outcomes that can arise from reconfiguring procurement—simplicity, efficiency, and creative solution development.
Host regular, city-wide workshops about the basics of procurement
Consider also hosting smaller workshops that are tailored to specific departments.
Share your slide deck, and create printed or digital materials
Share these across the organization so that people have material to refer to.
Host regular “open office hours” for current, past, and potential vendors
These are dedicated times for anyone to drop in, ask questions, and share ideas. City staff should be available and ready to meet with visitors. These are opportunities for city staff to learn how vendors work and what their goals are—and share the city government’s processes and goals.
Takeaways
Create or complete the following outputs before moving on to the next step.
One or more designated and trained product owners and a procurement innovation lead
A calendar of regular multi-departmental workshops and supporting materials about procurement innovation
Basic familiarity with software development methods across the organization
Further reading
2.
18F
De-risking guide: State Software Budgeting Handbook
Guidance for delivering successful custom technology projects in government
3.
18F
A day in the life of an 18F product owner
The importance of having a product owner in government
4.
Teaching Public Service in the Digital Age
The Digital Era Competencies
The Digital Era Competencies are baseline skills that all public service leaders should have, regardless of their other capabilities or their role.
