By Andrew Earnshaw published on

On Thursday 9 August over 70 attendees from across the State sector and ICT supply community attended the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) E-Leaders Transforming Procurement Hack.  We wanted to know how we can make procurement easier, inclusive and more transparent for all.

Hack Facilitator “Miramar Mike” Riversdale led the group through introductions and some interesting warm up exercises that helped highlight the make-up of our cohort.  The moving, mingling and lining up in age order revealed we had a fairly equal split on gender, a good mix of government to non-government representatives and a wide range of ages from 20’s to 60+. With everyone suitably exercised, work began in earnest.

A group of people stand around a table ranking information on cards.

Ranking our procurement objectives

Background to what we were doing

As a member and current Chair of the OECD E-Leaders forum, New Zealand is working with others on a Procurement Playbook to help public sector organisations reform their approach, with an emphasis on greater transparency, open data and sharing platforms and components.

Hackathons were held internationally throughout 2017 to support and inform the playbook development. The OECD E-Leaders forum was pleased with what New Zealand had done and requested we concentrate on further refinement of three key plays:

  • Play 6: Build trusting and collaborative relationships, internally and externally.
  • Play 7:  Share what you have with others and reuse what others have.
  • Play 8: Move away from specifying to regulating.
Working in groups, we reviewed the findings from last year’s hack, which had addressed "How government can better source innovation to support its digital transformation". We highlighted the submissions we felt were still current, and set aside those that had been addressed. Most groups also chose to either edit existing problem statements or create new ones.

Introducing Marketplace 

With these problem statements fresh in our minds, we were joined by Government Digital Services Minister Clare Curran, who spoke about a new era in digital government procurement processes and previewed Marketplace, New Zealand Government’s new digital government procurement channel.  

Link to speech: www.beehive.govt.nz/speech/start-new-era-digital-government-procurement-processes 

Link to Marketplace video: https://youtu.be/UnnuKqrHOI0

An accessible version of this video will be available shortly. Please contact us  if you have any questions.

With Marketplace showcased, we were able to further refine our list of outstanding problem statements, and following some good debate from the floor we came up with our ‘Most Wanted’ list. Now it was time to split up into 8 new teams, and work on our one big idea. 

The problems we looked at and the solutions we pitched

Team 1

Idea: Agencies are solving (or not) the same issues and not leveraging other agencies’ solutions.

Team 1's presentation: https://youtu.be/YBtex8FMXqE

Team 2

Idea: How do we improve knowledge sharing and communications across government and suppliers, thus encouraging them to share innovation learnings and engage/support the industry?

Team 2's presentation: https://youtu.be/mr521EuKK-8

Team 3

Idea: How do we change risk appetite so that organisations understand and mitigate risk rather than avoid it?

Team 3's presentation: https://youtu.be/SW-lL7Ol-8o

Team 4

Idea: Decision making can be cumbersome, political and high profile (global stage). Some decision makers may be risk averse and decisions are difficult to teach and achieve buy in. Society needs confidence in the decision making and needs being met more rapidly and the flexibility to adjust to change

Team 4's presentation: https://youtu.be/V2S89NlSS6o

Team 5

Idea: How can we develop a clear definition of partnering not outsourcing? In other words, what are the desirable attributes for successful relationships?

Team 5's presentation: https://youtu.be/aY0L3jjGmjs

Team 6

Idea: Co-designed, pre-market scope of the problem definition. An iterative, agile solution and budget to deliver value and pivot or fail where required.

Team 6's presentatio: https://youtu.be/pdJ1ywBqKqg

Team 7

Idea: Government agencies’ current budget caters for large projects and can only fail large.  Innovation requires iterative funding approaches to enable teams.

Team 7's presentation: https://youtu.be/ToHgxWGYjo0

Team 8

Idea: Delay loses value – solutions need to be acquired faster.

Team 8's presentation: https://youtu.be/l2f1eLrBbfE

What was the result?

After all the pitches were presented everyone voted on what they thought was the number one priority for government to address: What would be most effective in moving us forward?

Three key themes that emerged from each of the presentations:

  • Risk and the need to understand it’s impact
  • Sharing knowledge and the need to communicated with everyone
  • Speed and the need to change processes and move quickly.

Congratulations to Team 3 for convincing the room that we need to change risk appetite so that organisations understand and mitigate risk rather than avoid it.

The winning group pose for the camera with a poster they made.

Team 3 wins the People's Vote

What happens next?

  • We are updating the Playbook with these results, which we will share.
  • We are providing input to the OECD Cohort on what we think.
  • We are asking the group involved in the Hack if they want to remain engaged on the ongoing re-imagining work.
  • We will propose areas to focus on based on the Hack and other inputs and ask for participants to be part of progressing these.
  • We will keep you up to date with other developments for example the continued evolution of the Government Digital Procurement Marketplace.

Utility links and page information

Was this page helpful?
Thanks, do you want to tell us more?

Do not enter personal information. All fields are optional.