Looking to Save Time on Your Next RFP? Try Being More Agile!

Sick of rolling out the same boring tender? You hate it, your suppliers hate it. So why not change to an engagement based process that will let you design your solution with the market?

Procurement is an industry that always uses plain English and is entirely free of buzzwords and pointless jargon. Said no-one ever. The problem with buzzwords or jargon-type phrases is that they can often make something appear more complicated than it is. 

Has this sort of behaviour caused you to put Agile Procurement in the too hard basket? Then maybe it’s time to think again.

Agile Roots

Like a lot of good ideas, the agile methodology has been borrowed from the IT sector. Agile was created for iteration software development and quickly grew in popularity. Although it does have it’s own structure with defined terms and roles, it’s principles can be applied to anything. 

In procurement, Agile offers a different way of thinking about and conducting the sourcing process. It is non-traditional, where engagement is key to both the supply market and stakeholders.

Benefits of Adopting Agile

There are many benefits for choosing an agile procurement process over a traditional one.

• Although resource heavy for short bursts, it is overall faster
• Engagement based and people-centric 
• Collaboration culture inviting creative ideas
• Supplier input and interaction throughout the process
• Allows suppliers to showcase their strengths rather than awarding contracts to people who can write the best response. It brings your needs and their solution to life.
• Enables early testing, tweaks and changes to the approach before you sign the contract
• Great for indirect services, social procurement, working with smaller businesses and dynamic markets that are quick to change
• Stops you from being too prescriptive and therefore getting what you asked for rather than what you want. Leave the solutioneering to the supply experts.

Considerations Before You Take the Plunge

As with many new strategies, before you take the plunge with Agile, you need to ensure you have the right project and the right stakeholders. You may need to spread your stakeholder net wider than you have traditionally done, but that’s no bad thing.

Get legal on board early to ensure they understand your vision, as boilerplate contracts and processes won’t work. Baseline T&Cs are great, but you need the flexibility to share risk (if desired) or work with new cost and payment models that the organisation might not be used to. If you want Agile to be a success, then you need to take core support functions, like Legal and Finance, along for the journey.

You also need to understand that there will be periods where the time commitment can be intensive. For example, you might need to run all day supplier workshops for embedding processes or running tenders. However, this pays off in the long-term with a process that is, overall, much shorter. 

And remember, you can always test the water if you aren’t sure. You don’t have to go the full hog straight away and have a scrum master, burn down charts and product releases. You can simply take the principles and apply them to your next project. Challenge the default setting of rolling out the same traditional, heavy process like a factory line.

Agile Principles Applied to Procurement

The following table outlines a creative alternative to applying the agile principles to procurement.

1. Involve your internal client early and frequently throughout the process
2. Be adaptive and open to change. Focus on outcomes and objectives not prescriptive requirements.
3. Find ways to reduce burdensome processes. Replace RFP’s with supplier presentations, hold one moderation meeting & agree contract award in the same meeting.
4. Have dedicated roles with people that have dedicated the time to set aside. Ensure these roles represent all key functions of the business.
5. Get a high level manager to act as sponsor to provide you top cover. Then ensure they leave you to it. There is no room for helicopter management here.
6. Have regular but shorter meetings. Daily 15 – 30 minute stand ups are popular.
7. Ensure you are always tracking to your main objective and goal. Be unified on your shared focus and get specific with how this will be measured e.g. meaningful KPIs.
8. Sustainable development: the goal and objective is pushing the frontiers of what is possible but ensuring that a product, a contract is produced at the end. 
9. Quality matters. There are no shortcuts, fail fast if required but always strive for excellence. 
10. Priortise the tasks that need to be done and focus on the big ticket items. Continually simplify your processes.
11. Ensure there is a structure around how the team will meet and work together. Agile does not mean unstructured and organic, it’s a well oiled machine. Traditional hierarchies and job titles are chucked out the window in favour of working to people’s strengths, everyone has an equal vote.
12. Hold retrospective meetings during the process at key milestones, learn on the go. Don’t wait for a big debrief at the end.

Defanging the Beast

There you have it, approaching agile procurement doesn’t have to be too scary in fact it boils down to putting engagement and collaboration at the centre of the procurement process. If you start with these basic principles you can start to challenge the traditional thinking around templated and laborious RFP’s. 

Looking to take it further than the principles but not sure where to start? You’ll need to come back to read the second article in this mini series!