The innovation buying journey follows the NSW best practice procurement process including the Plan, Source and Manage stages.
However, innovation procurement involves multiple repeated Source and Manage stages, with decision-gates between each repetition. Because of this, Test and Buy Innovation guidance uses the term ‘phases’ for Plan, Source and Manage and ‘stages’ for each repetition.
To set up for important decisions and to drive an iterative, agile approach to procurement, Test and Buy Innovation also includes a Discover phase. It is in this phase that projects set up for success – gathering robust evidence before committing to a procurement and creating governance structures to support testing, learning and adapting.
Buyers may need increased support for steps that are complex or less familiar, through the pages linked below and by contacting the Test and Buy Innovation advisory team at InnovationProcurement@customerservice.nsw.gov.au.
Align need with strategy
The first step in the Qualify phase involves developing a high level understanding of the need, desired outcome and a solution hypothesis without assuming a solution. Prospective buyers should engage ICT/product/digital and technology strategy professionals to ensure their need aligns with strategy, isn’t being solved elsewhere and should be solved. Buyers can consult our innovation eligibility checklist to see if the Test and Buy Innovation model is a good fit.
Resources: Align need with strategy
Design a buying pathway
In the Discover phase, the buying pathway step starts with deciding whether the market approach should cover the final implementation of a successful solution at scale. Buyers can then explore a range of engagement methods to include in the pathway, to narrow proposals and improve confidence in investment decisions.
Buyer journey resources: Buying pathway
Mobilise the buying team
When buying innovation, a cross-functional and collaborative buying team will need to design and monitor the buying pathway and approvers will need to know what to expect. It's important to mobilise the buying project before procurement activity starts. This aligns key people on objectives, roles and ways of working and minimises conflict and delays.
Buyer journey resources: Mobilise your buying team
Scope for innovation
Defining the scope of the buying project through an outcome-focused challenge statement can attract innovative proposals. Innovation scoping workshops help stakeholders identify business needs and understand the end users' perspective. They also help align the stakeholders’ understanding of the problem to be solved, the value to the end user, success criteria, and measures, which then facilitate framing a challenge statement.
Buyer journey resources: Scope for innovation
Conduct market research
Innovation buying teams should avoid assuming a solution but should still conduct market research across emergent domains and categories. Engaging a wide range of stakeholders and considering multiple sources of market insight during the Discover phase helps buying teams to form a solution hypothesis and narrow the buying pathway options. Each procurement stage will refine the understanding of the market, inform risk management, increase confidence in solutions and drive good outcomes.
Resources: Conduct market research
Develop your iteration plan
Uncovering new information is a key feature of agile and iterative procurement and an indicator of innovation. Adapting the buying approach to new information is necessary to manage emerging risks but changes must also be well-governed with probity in mind. An iteration plan helps buyers plan for and manage decision-points and gives decision-makers confidence in the change management approach.
Resources: Develop your iteration plan
Build a business case and budget
Whether a formal business is required in line with the NSW Treasury requirements, or some less formal version like a project mandate, approaching it in stages is recommended when buying innovation. This means focusing on the case for change before approaching the market to stay open to a range of solutions and having funding to cover at least one testing stage. Further funding might be subject to evidence from testing and a more detailed business case, once there is confidence in the preferred option, in line with the iteration plan.
Resources: Prepare your business case
Document outcome-focused requirements
When the end solution is unknown, innovation buying teams can use outcome-focused requirements [link to Scope for innovation page] in their initial approach to market. Rather than writing specifications, they can define a challenge statement [link to define challenge statement page] to attract a range of innovative responses from the market. Requirements templates may need to be amended to support the outcome-focus and/or staged deliverables.
Resources: Document outcome-focused requirements
Define evaluation criteria
Evaluation criteria are the bridge between project objectives and the problem to be solved. They underpin a defensible shortlisting process and connect the different experts who determine whether a proposal addresses the problem. When the solution being evaluated is unknown, criteria should focus on outcomes and may need to evolve with each stage, with changes managed in line with the iteration plan. Buying teams should avoid ruling out proposals with rigid mandatory criteria unless they are true 'showstoppers'.
Resources: Define evaluation criteria
Document your market approach
To approve an approach to market, decision-makers need a clear justification as to why the market approach is needed and how it will achieve the buying objectives and comply with the NSW Government procurement policies. An innovation buying strategy and supporting documentation draws from the findings and decisions of all preceding steps in the Discovery and the Plan phases. A range of expertise should work collaboratively and templates may need to be tailored to accommodate the outcome-focus and multi-stage approach.
Resources: Document your market approach
Source
Coming soon
Manage
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Innovation buying journey resources
Discover whether a need should be addressed and how to approach it.
Choose whether to plan for scale and explore engagement approaches.
Get the right people on the same page and kick off work.
Attract innovation with a challenge statement for the market to solve.
Iteratively gather market insights across emergent domains that involve a lot of uncertainty.
Take a staged approach to business cases and budgets to manage uncertainty.
Manage changes resulting from new information to manage risks and build certainty.
Structure outcome-focused requirements that involve uncertainty.
Set flexible evaluation criteria that focus on outcomes.
Document a compliant market approach that will achieve buying objective.
Apply stakeholder management, agile methodologies, probity and risk frameworks.
Identify, engage and manage the experts you need to support your project success.
Apply agile methodologies to support iterative testing and achieve great outcomes.
Protect practices that foster innovation while navigating treatments for probity risk.
Balance risk and reward to achieve innovation outcomes while meeting procurement requirements.
Coming soon
Watch this space