At the last U.S. Leaders Exchange for Public Procurement meeting, participants (primarily senior executives within the procurement community) provided recommendations for priorities the Trump Administration should focus on. In addition to compiling the feedback provided by participants, we have also reviewed recommendations provided by various think tanks and special interest groups to develop a holistic view of the overall recommendations.
Within this document, you will find:
- A summary of the recommendations provided by Exchange participants
- Links to various presidential recommendations reports from think tanks and industry organizations—we are in the process of summarizing these reports and consolidating our findings
- Next steps we are pursuing as we engage senior officials within the Trump Administration
What you recommended for the next administration
To discuss the presidential recommendations at our last Leaders Exchange meeting, we used Dr. Steve Kelman’s memo to the President, an excerpt from the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) report. The discussion was engaging and constructive to say the least. Participants also provided written input on recommendations for the next administration.
Below is a summary of what you recommended as a group:
- Improve Workforce and Culture: Combined together, workforce- and culture-related recommendations top the list by far. The overall recommendations can be grouped into:
- Workforce development was noted as a critical priority, with improved training in the areas of cost analysis, market understanding and relationship management.
- Increase PM/COR numbers to drive more focus on post-award management and outcomes/results. “Increase/enhance/professionalize COR workforce and place directly in customer organization to encourage acquisition team inclusive of all stakeholders.”
- Drive culture change from compliance to outcomes/results and innovation; “Need to accommodate flexibility and ability and promote a less regulated and risk adverse culture.”
- Manage Contracts/Relationships for Results Outcomes – a considerable number of recommendations were focused managing contracts for results. The recommendations can be broken down as follows:
- Outcomes and metrics — need for more focus during planning on clear definition of outcomes, metrics; alignment with stakeholders/customers on measures.
- Post-Award management — several recommendations focused on increasing focus on post-award management, either through hiring more PMs/CORs, or managing/measuring contractors for results through “collection of data.”
- Manage supplier relationships — proactively manage contracts and supplier relationships in order to “in order to achieve value for money, reduce transaction costs, reduce time to delivery.”
- Elevate Role of SPEs and Procurement – the third most common recommendation was around the role of Senior Procurement Executives (SPEs) and the role of procurement overall:
- Outcomes and metrics — need for more focus during planning on clear definition of outcomes, metrics; alignment with stakeholders/customers on measures.
- Reporting relationships — elevate role of SPEs so they report up to the Deputy Secretary or Secretary
- Expand authority — provide more discretion and authority to SPEs to they can apply their “wisdom, judgment, risk”;
In addition to the above, there were several other recommendations focused on procurement innovation andcross-agency collaboration (strategic sourcing/category management) with other agencies.
Next steps on advising the administration
In order to provide a holistic set of recommendations to the administration and a multi-stakeholder view, the PSF team, along with Michigan State University and Dr. Steve Kelman is:
- Summarizing and aggregating recommendations across all major reports issued by various organizations. These reports include (please click on each for link to report) ACT/IAC, Professional Services Council, IBM Center for Business of Government, Procurement Roundtable, Performance Institute, National Academy of Public Administration and more. We are summarizing these recommendations and aggregating across common themes.
- Developing an overall recommendations brief based on the summary as well as input provided by you.
- Incorporating your recommendations into a “Voice of the Procurement Leadership” section of our upcoming recommendations report.
- Meeting with OMB leadership to review.
- Organizing a community event to discuss broadly.
Please let us know if there is anything we missed or if you have any other recommendations.