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PROCESS |
A set of organizational improvement techniques were identified.
Organizational Metrics Framework A metrics framework was developed to measure the performance of IT procurement teams. The framework was based on the PULSE methodology, but with additional metrics to identify the degree to which teams are functioning and producing expected results across a broad set of attributes.The measurements were relative, since each organization would have started at a different level of effectiveness before the project.
Procurement Survey Tool A survey tool was developed, in the form of a questionnaire, to:The questionnaire was self-administered by the procurement team. It was divided into a Teamworking Questionnaire (28 questions) and a Results Questionnaire (15 questions), plus an "open comments" page. The Results Questionnaire was formed from a subset of the VALIDATE Project Performance Metrics.
The questionnaire was tested with the Project Partners and members of the European Procurement Forum.
There has been very positive feedback on the Procurement Survey Tool, and there is interest in its potential for benchmarking. Results Analysis At each stage, an analysis was performed on the Procurement Survey Tool data:| Swedish Defence FMV | Information repository, easy entry/access |
| Portugal Telecom | Project management tool, leadership training |
| U.K. Post Office | Best practice consultant and internal marketing |
| Instsituto Informatica | Project configuration management tool |
| Portuguese Transport Authority | External consultant for workflow |
| Rhone Poulenc | Project structuring and catalysis via facilitator |
The experiments ran from three to six months each.
The Project Partners provided independent facilitators to collect organizational metrics before and after the experiments, and to work with the Project Users to define and manage the experiments.
The experiments addressed three key topics, each related to improving integration and teamwork:
Each experiment began by identifying improvement areas using the Procurement Survey Tool (such as communications and training), and then implementing a teamworking-related recommendation (such as introducing a new central procurement documentation repository).
The procurement team was then sent off to a workshop to get everything out into the open.
The survey was repeated at the end of the experiments.
Teamworking in IT Procurement Guide The data collected enabled the development of a set of guidelines to assist other organizations in improving their in-house teamwork. Case Studies A set of five Case Studies was developed based on the Team-Building Experiments. The structure of each study is as follows: