The Power of Testimonials

“Investing time to learn something in your professional make you RICH in your KNOWLEDGE, if you are not then it will make you POOR in your PERFORMANCE.”
― Sivaprakash Sidhu

In our profession we all know the strength of numbers, the strength of collaboration, and the strength of sharing knowledge, but did you ever consider the strength of testimonials?

How many times are you asked, “So what is it you do”?

Does your “boss” or leader really know what it is you do for your organization?  How about what you do for other organizations such as your local chapter or NIGP?

This is where the power of the Testimonial can come into play.  Tell them the story about how you found procurement.  Tell them about the solicitation that went so totally wrong.  Tell others about the contracts you are proud of and why you are proud of them. Most especially, tell others why you do what you do and get them excited to join you.  As a growing profession, procurement still needs help in getting to word out.  Procurement needs help to become a true “profession” as per the definition of the word and the only way to do that is to get others excited about what we do through testimonials.  By generating excitement we can then advocated to get our classes and training added to business degree programs or other programs that offer business classes in conjunction with their degree programs.  For example, when I was attending UMUC for my Masters in Biotechnology we took classes based on patent law, project management and ethics. Wouldn’t it have also made sense to also have a class on procurement? As many research projects start at the academic level and SMEs would be needed to build those projects and any procurement related to the project, having a basic knowledge of procurement and how it works could expedite the gathering of the needed resources for that research project.

So my message to you today is Tell Your Story. Be excited that you get to participate in a world class profession that gets to touch every facet of what we do.  Use your voice to help encourage others to join our profession.  Give Your Testimonial!

Keeping up with the trends

Hello everyone!!! It’s been awhile since I last posted but I want to keep this brainchild alive for longer than a few months.  

So how do we as procurement professionals keep up with the current procurement trends? Personally I have found sitting in on webinars is a useful tool to keep up.  In fact I am listening to a webinar presented by the esteemed Tammy Rimes, current Director of the National Cooperative Procurement Partners!! As a professional it is important that we do not discount free webinars from sources other that our state or national professional organizations.  Many times other organizations related to procurement can help with keeping us up to date.  A local legal firm may offer a free class once per year on the legal aspects of procurement or on construction procurement.   Vendors can offer webinars on current market trends.  Cooperative organizations can offer not only webinars on their contracts but also on how other organizations might do something.  
The key to all of this is to stay fresh and as current as we can be with the constantly moving target that is procurement.
Hope to see you soon!!

Fiscal Year End Madness!!!

It’s that time of year again when the madness of the impending end of the fiscal year begins.  Ours for some reason started at the beginning of the month of May.   The finance department is diligently working to see what is open that can be closed, where money can be freed up to assist with last minute purchases and looking towards when to open up the next fiscal year so that business can continue as the calendar year proceeds.  End users are scrambling to used all the money they can, working with vendors to get goods and services delivered before the June 30 deadline, and hoping that nothing slows down the processes to get them delivered.

For Purchasing it is busy on a two fold measure.  On top of all the orders to be processed, sourcing to be found and in general assistance of helping our end users do business, we also have a large number of contracts that run from fiscal year start to fiscal year end that either need to be renewed, renegotiated or re-solicited.  This added burden can mean lots of gray hairs, some late nights (or in my case earlier mornings) and of course added stress of getting it all done by COB on June 30.  Oh and did I mention all the vendors that “just have to have” a meeting with you to discuss next year?  While we try to accommodate as many as possible there are just not enough hours in the day to do it all.

Remember to take things in stride, plan your day and give yourself time for those unexpected calendar changes and drop ins. Remember to take care of yourself, even if it is simply a 15 minute walk at lunch to get you away from your desk and out of the office.   Leave the office at the office when you do go home to ensure you get a good nights rest.  Try to eat healthier to ensure your energy and focus level are top notch. Most importantly – VENT – yes I said VENT.  Vent to your coworkers, procurement colleagues or significant other just to get out the frustrations of the moment or the day.

As with everything, this too shall pass…. until next year!   Happy End of Fiscal Year! Stay Strong! You Got This!

Transparency and the FOIA Request

Every profession has its own acronyms and language.  In ours we have “FOIAble”  As members of the public society and as taxpayers having documents or information that can be obtained via polite request or formal FOIA requests is a part of our daily lives and in most instances understandable.  In fact, as procurement professionals sometimes even we need to FOIA someone to get information in order to complete our work.

Transparency can be both good and bad.  So the reason for this subject is the irresponsible, uninformed, not the full story FOIA request.  The ones that are just to data gather without true knowledge of what they are obtaining.  While I am not going to specifically call out any companies today, there have been rumblings by those of us in procurement regarding companies that send us FOIA requests just to gather numbers etc. and then they try to get us to buy the information they have gathered to “help you do a better job at procuring goods and services.”  But do they really help?  I don’t know because we cannot afford the fees for the information and have to do good old fashioned research to find the best opportunities etc.

A listing of all the POs that were issued in the last 3 months, with line item detail, dollar value, the vendor purchased from, vendor address and point of contact is a common request.  Does that request give you a true representation of the scope of the project that items were ordered for?  Does it give you the means in which that good or service was procured (competitive solicitation, quick quote, sole source, emergency)? How can you price compare when you do not know if you are comparing apples to apples?  Furthermore why should we have to pay for the information that was ours to begin with?

Also let’s take a moment to recognize that this company may be submitting a FOIA request to a department that has been doing more with less and less and responding to these requests takes time away from work that the tax payers rely on. Yes I understand the value in gathering information and offering it to all to help ensure that the tax payers’ monies are being spent wisely, however at what expense is this gathering method taking on these same monies? Public employees historically make less than their private sector counterparts so why should they give up their work/life balance to make someone else money just to respond to this request and then have to work longer hours to complete their assigned work?

Now let’s also talk about the legislations that have been looming to require postings of spend in line item detail to public websites.  Many times this legislation is being pushed by the companies that tout their “helping” our profession and showing transparency.  Once again let’s think about what is actually being posted without the real story behind the spend.  How is the public to know that a certain line item of spend was due to an emergency and thus the amount spent was higher than it would normally have been?  How from such postings is the common citizen to know that procurement and the end users worked for months on a procurement process to ensure that they met all the legal requirements of the government, ensured the safety of the citizens they represent and negotiated the best deal they could get at the time of the award?  In many cases the tax payers must know that “You get what you pay for” and always looking for the cheapest deal is not always in the best long term interest of the constituency.

While I will continue to work hard for my taxpayers, as a taxpayer companies that make money off of the government just to tell the government they are doing it wrong or not the way they would do it frustrate me.  I would ask that the people working in these companies come walk a mile in our shoes before making such requests, and listen to what happens on the front lines before deciding that we could do better if we just did it their way.

My two cents for today.  Peace, Love, and Mindfulness to you All.

Ethics, Integrity, & Leadership

Funny how my mind always goes to song lyrics.  For this topic the “I always feel like, somebody’s watching me..” comes to mind.  We all like to talk about ethics in procurement and ensuring our solicitations and evaluations are performed in an ethical manner, but what about our actions.   While no one is perfect and everyone slips up now and again, as a leader, public employee, parent or in general just a human being we should keep in mind that even when we don’t think it is happening, someone is watching us.  They watch what we do, what we say, how we act around our peers and especially they watch how we act when we are not in the office.

So let’s talk about perception when attending events away from our normal workplace.  Tax payer monies pay for us to attend professional development events with the expectation that we actually attend and participate in those events. Participating attendees go to gather knowledge to help them in their profession and progress their careers.

Now the story behind this post.  At a recent conference it was observed that a couple of individuals from a well known jurisdiction checked in to the conference but did not attend a single professional development part of the conference.  One of these individuals showed up for all the meals but not any breakout session or other session of the event.  The second individual wasn’t even seen at the meals.   My first thought was, “how dare they!” The rest of us are sitting here through these sometimes boring sessions to gain recertification contact hours and these guys will get the same and not attend!!  The second thought was, “wow, all that money spent to send them down to this event and they will not be taking a single thing back to their job that would not only benefit them but their organization, glad I don’t pay taxes in that jurisdiction!”  Then my third thought was, “I should contact their boss!”  Rather than take action on my third thought I chose to put my thoughts out to you, after all this is about a day in the life is it not?  Our responsibility to our organization and who they serve is the foundation of what makes our country so great.

As what I hope is a good leader, I sat through the boring and not so boring events.  I encouraged participation and hope that I set the example of how the money spent for us to attend should be used.  It is sad to see the lack of ethics and integrity of others.  Yes we are all public employees but we are here to do what is best for the PUBLIC which sometimes means sacrifices of time to ensure we can give our public the best we have to offer.

I look forward to your thoughts on this….  till next time.

P-Cards Part 3 – The conference

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending the Bank of America Annual P-Card conference for my state.  Yes the Commonwealth of Virginia has a contract with them for government credit cards and they cohost an annual event.   Since I am new to being a P-Card administrator I went to the conference to gain ideas on how to better utilize the resources available through BofA, best practices on audits, compliance issues and in general learn how others were managing their programs.

I have to say while it was a long day (2.5 hr drive each way with 8 hrs of conference in between) I learned a lot and made some new connections!

First lets talk about the things I learned to look for when I start auditing the spend of my organization.

• Check for vendors that by pass the MCC restriction tables
• Sort transactions by MCCs to see if any others being used are questionable
• Search by key words
• Get used to pulling 3rd level data

The next item that was hit on a lot at the conference is using the audits/compliance checks as a means to build relationships with your end users.  (Who would have thought that policing transactions could lead to better relationships?!!) Communication between you and the end user builds rapport and can lead to them asking permission rather than forgiveness. Being consistent in asking questions then makes it easier later on when you do see something that just doesn’t look right.   Have monthly meetings to stay in touch.

Fraud Happens!  It happens to all of us, so reassure your end user and help them to resolve the issues.

Violations – personal use and other known violations, work with HR/Management to address as appropriate.  (Management Support is key here and not all of us have it… if you don’t, Document, Document, Document!!!)

Continuing with the Audit topic don’t forget to look for split transactions!  Train and retrain as often as possible to ensure there is no confusion on what they can and cannot do.  Reconcilers and Account Managers are people too, don’t assume they know everything, training and retraining them is important so that they can help you to help them.

Use your reports!  Declined Transaction reports can show you if levels need to be increased, attempts at fraud, and other issues.  Single Transaction limit reports can show you if someone is splitting a transaction.  Audit reports by vendor can let you know if you may need to go out to bid for that commodity.  Use the 13 month report to help find cards you may not need anymore…

Needless to say the wheels are turning and plans being formulated to improve and grow our program… hope this helps you with yours too!

 

End Users ARGH!!

Did you ever have that one end user who thinks you are psychic and can read their mind?  After all we are sitting right next to them right?  Getting end users to respond at all or in a timely fashion can be a challenge.  How about that “emergency” they have now because they didn’t communicate to you months ago that they were working on something that had a strict deadline! (Lack of planning on your part doesn’t constitute and emergency on my part, I WISH!!)

For anyone who knows me I am a stickler for on time and on schedule.  The military taught me that being early is on time and being on time is late. I stress when I have to drop everything and work on something because someone else didn’t plan well. However the last 5 years have allowed me to grow, have patience, and understand that not everyone works like I do.  Now I am not saying I do not procrastinate with the best of them, (doing so right now to get these thoughts out!) but I also have learned that we don’t know what the other person is dealing with, what their workload is, nor what their degree of competence is in their line of work.

So how do you combat the end user who is always late, rarely communicates, or only gives you pieces of the information?

COMMUNICATION!!  Yes I might call them, but I always follow up with an email to reiterate what we discussed.  If they are in the same building with me, I have been known to camp out in their office till I get a moment to get the information I need to help them and then again follow up with an email.  And yes finally if there is no other choice, I cc their boss.  Once they know that I if they don’t respond I will cc their boss, they usually become much more communicative!  Document, document, document to not only cover yourself but also to help them out.

Now I am not trying to get anyone in trouble here, it is just I want to do what is best for our organization and I cannot do it alone.  Just like raising a child, it takes a village to ensure that a public jurisdiction has everything it needs to be successful.

 

Happy Friday everyone!

Getting Motivated and Involved

Public Service is no laughing matter, but it is the little things we do that does matter.  The average, everyday citizen rarely knows the level of work and commitment that goes on behind the scenes to provide them with services they use daily.  Many times the public servant’s role is thankless.  So how do you motivate others?  How do you get others involved?

I have heard a time or two that the characters in the Winne-the-Pooh stories represent different emotional and social conditions that people face such as depression, OCD, and ADHD.  I guess you could say, no, I KNOW you could say that Tigger is a representation of my personality.  Hyper, energetic and most of the time positive and forward thinking.  By portraying those traits, I hope to motivate others to be as excited or committed to public service as I am.

I was recently elected to the Virginia Association of Governmental Purchasing (VAGP) Board of Directors as a Second – At – Large member.  In this role I have been assigned to complete the implementation of our Champions’ Program.  The core of this program is to reach out to those areas of our state that are possibly more isolated than the metro areas of our state to find someone in their area that can be a conduit between their needs and the offerings of our organization.  So today my ever active brain is storming trying to figure out ways to promote VAGP, procurement education and active involvement.

Sadly, after a recent public meeting I got to read how a former government employee called all other public employees “Thieves”.  I wondered if that person really took a moment to realize all the services in their life that were provided by these so called “Thieves” and why they thought that they should not be paid a reasonable wage that kept up with inflation?  How do you combat this negativity and encourage others to join and stay in public service?

I do it for my fellow man, fellow citizen and I feel that “We’re All in This Together”!!  Keep it real and let me know how you stay motivated or motivate others!

Editing, Creating Policy

Well I have done it now!  I have started on the journey to update our Procurement Policy and Regulations.  As I reviewed our lead legal document, the Virginia Public Procurement Act (VPPA), I first start with identifying what parts of the VPPA we are required to follow and which parts we can elect to incorporate or not.  Once the paragraphs are identified it is then time to move on to what was currently in place.

My goal in taking on this arduous task is to improve the documents in order for our constituents and end users to clearly understand what we do, the methods we use, and to show that we are transparent, unbiased and use industry best practices.   Thankfully some of my VA colleagues sent me copies of their policies and procedures to use as resources and I am using them to the fullest!

As I look at our two documents my ADD brain tends to over think things.  In our organization Policy is approved by the School Board and Regulation is approved by the Superintendent.  In a nutshell that means that Policy is broad and Regulation is detailed.  For some reason my brain is struggling to determine what should go in which.

In brainstorming with my supervisor a game plan is developed; combine the documents into as much detail as possible and then we can determine what to pull out to make the broad document.  Now while this sounds simple, for someone like me, I will still get hung up on the minutiae from time to time but I will slog on until it is as finished I can get it before showing others.

I am taking this week to devote to this project and hopefully it will be done on my timeline… but as we all know Procurement will interrupt the best laid plans!

Back in the Saddle

After having surgery and being out of the office for two weeks, getting back into the swing of things.  Boy did a LOT happen in just two short weeks.  While I am still in “recovery” mode, work must go on… the trick is not to overdo it!

The contract mentioned in an earlier post that was having “politic” problems was cancelled.

There were issues with an end user not following procurement policy and now I have to figure out how to get that department under control without stepping on too many toes or appearing to be a bully or condescending.

Reviewing and negotiating terms with a vendor who does not understand that a contract was established and their new T’s and C’s are in conflict with what was previously negotiated.

In general just catching up … oh and don’t forget to study for the CPPO!!!

What a warm welcome it is!