How to co-produce a technology procurement?

Involving tenants and/or first line staff in choosing technology providers is a particularly meaningful form of co-production. It is a complex and challenging undertaking to involve tenants and first line staff in procurement. But it is also hugely rewarding and can offer significant organisational benefits.

A co-produced procurement is likely to result in the purchase of technology that is user-friendly and appropriately meets real needs. The adoption of technology is likely to encounter resistance from both staff and tenants and can therefore have relatively poor outcomes. A co-produced procurement process can create a feeling of stakeholder ownership and consequently increase the chances of the benefits of technology being more fully realised.

Co-produced procurement a stepped approach

A co-produced technology procurement has five steps:

Identify a steering group
Preparatory work
Shortlisting
Hold interviews and plan onboarding
Review and reflect

1. Identify a steering group

The first step is to identify or form a group to steer the process. If there is an already formed technology co-production group, you may want to use this as the procurement steering group. Or you may feel that a sub-group or a new group is required. Once you have identified a group to ensure that the meetings run smoothly and efficiently there are similar considerations to those identified in running a co-production group. The same general principles apply, including:

Make sure the group has clear aims and objectives,
Agree some ground rules
Set out clearly the group membership
Decide how the group will be chaired
Spend some time getting to know each other and building trust
Consider the access needs of the group
Plan the sequence of meetings in advance

2. Preparatory work

The group will need to do a considerable amount of preparatory work. Procurement is a complex area of organisational policy and procedure. The group will need to have a reasonable understanding of how procurement works in their organisation. Including the restrictions and limitations which may form part of the way procurement works. Group members don’t have to be experts in procurement. They just need a good overview and a working understanding. It is important to set clear expectations and honestly explain the procedure so that there are no surprises during the process. This could be achieved by formal training and/or explaining things as they come up.

It is important that the group understands how the procurement will be funded and the budget. If the budget is already set, you may decide that the group does not need an enormous amount of detail about the finances, but they will need to know the basics. If the group started to meet before a budget is set, then you may wish to explore together the funding options.

As a group, develop some technology personas. These are short pen portraits of typical fictional tenants and their technology needs. It’s good to create a few of these and ensure that they are representative of the diversity of the tenant population. This can be a fun and creative exercise to do as a group. You might want to try using drawings or photographs to stimulate ideas. Start off by thinking about tenants’ lives and aspirations. What do people do now, what would they like to do more of, what assistance and support do they need? Once you have a clear idea of tenants’ wishes and aspirations you can start to think about what elements might have technological solutions. At this point TSA's Virtual House may be a useful tool to help people understand what technology is available.

Using the personas and the understanding of what technology is available co-create with the group a brief for potential providers. Following some market research this can then be sent out to a range of technology companies.

It is useful at this point to have an agreement about how to manage decision making. It is important to note that usually co-produced procurement panels don’t find it hard to come to consensus decisions. However, it is a good idea to think through in advance how decisions will be made. Think about the role of the steering group in decision making; is the group advisory or can it contribute to decisions if so how. Perhaps it is an idea to nominate one person to have the final say in the unlikely event of a lack of consensus.

It is also helpful at this point to agree at what points and how will tenants and first line workers be involved. For example, there could be a tenant panel and a staff panel or one mixed panel.

At this stage you may wish to agree set of criteria to use to guide decisions. There is a TSA product which can help with this. One thing that is very important to consider at this point is the importance of legal considerations, such as data privacy and contract terms. It's crucial to ensure that the chosen providers adhere to legal/data protection requirements.

3. Shortlisting

The next stage is for the group to consider the technology companies' proposals and offers. People may need some time to read and digest the proposals. Think about how to make the information provided by the companies as easy as possible for everyone to understand. It might be helpful to create accessible summaries of each company’s offer and/or draw up a spreadsheet of all the proposal’s main points.

If you have lots of proposals, you might need to hold a meeting to agree which ones to pursue further and which to discard.

There may be several companies whose offers you wish to consider in a face to face or online meeting. Based on the criteria agreed in stage 2, a list of questions to ask the companies should be developed. The interviews should be structured and standardised to ensure a fair evaluation of technology companies. Agree who will ask which questions and hold some mock interviews so everyone has a chance to practice.

It’s a good idea at this stage to agree a contingency plan if a chosen company fails to meet expectations post-procurement.

4. Hold interviews and plan onboarding

It is preferable to interview all the companies on the same day, however this might not always be possible both because of scheduling but also that tenants might find a full day of interviewing too tiring.

Make sure that you inform the companies attending that there will be tenants involved in the interview process. You should provide the companies with some advice about how to interact with tenants for example to minimise jargon, explain technical terms, be friendly and informal, be prepared to take things slowly and that the interviews may take longer than usual.

Encourage the TEC companies to provide demonstrations and presentations of the equipment they offer. This is key for tenants and staff. There’s nothing more useful than seeing and experimenting with the equipment to help make an informed decision.

It is good to meet up before the companies start arriving so there is plenty of time for any questions and for a final run through. Make sure you space out the interviews so there is some time to review each one and to have a break.

Once you have made a decision involve the tenants who were part of the interview panel in the provider onboarding. This will help to ensure that the company continues to keep tenant perspectives in mind. You need to make sure that the companies are aware of the tenant role in onboarding.

6. Review and reflect

The final stage is to hold a meeting to debrief and reflect on the process. What went well and what need to be done to improve the process. You might wish to involve a wider group of stakeholders in this meeting possibly including the successful companies. It is good practice to write up lessons learned, best practices, and areas for improvement. This documentation can be valuable for future co-produced procurements. This meeting should also be used to plan a post-implementation review to assess how well the technology meets the tenants’ needs and whether any adjustments are necessary.