Build evidence for your case for change

Committing to uncertainty

Approvers of buying projects should feel comfortable with the evidence base for any procurement decisions they make. When buying innovation the end solution is not known, meaning approvers do not have access to a detailed assessment of benefits, costs, risks or controls.

With so much uncertainty, the decision to commit to a buying project can be difficult, despite having a foundation of good problem definition and market research. Approvers need confidence to commit to a market approach. They need clarity on staged decision-making and want assurance that more robust evidence will be available at the right time to support further decisions.

Put your best foot forward

Innovation buying teams must balance the need for an approved procurement approach with the knowledge that new information will emerge over the course of the buying project.

There are limits to what insights can be gained from market research. Buying teams need to lean on the procurement process itself to address any unanswered questions.

Before approaching the market, many NSW Government agencies expect buyers to have a confirmed budget and project mandate. This can be challenging when the end solution is unknown. Given the uncertainty of innovation, many assumptions would need to be made to complete a business case. This would create a range of barriers to innovative solutions.

Innovation buying teams need support to work with uncertainty, limited market insights, staged business cases focused on the problem definition and case for change, and budgets focused on seed funding to explore options.

Plan to iterate

A good iteration plan demonstrates the limited scope of each decision to decision-makers and provides assurance that the right information will become available as needed. It relieves the pressure of needing to make early decisions with incomplete insights, making space for innovation.

Iteration planning allows the project team to anticipate change and ensure it is managed. An iteration plan sets up and communicates structured learning and decision points such as:

• market insights – solution types, capability, maturity and competition
• business case – the case for change, options analysis, costs, benefits and risks
• funding – budgets, investment risk, life-cycle costing, internal resourcing.

Learning and adapting are at the heart of iteration. Learning means systematically uncovering new information. Adapting means making decisions based on new evidence. When a final decision needs to be made after several iterations, approvers should have the robust evidence they need.

These resources support buying teams to base their approved procurement approach on foundational evidence, plan for change and build stronger evidence over multiple stages to support budget and business case decisions.