Part 1

Purpose:

Transfer to digital

Part 2

Purpose:

Implementation

Part 1 – transfer to digital

During the workshops you would have been able to capture and order the activity and people from your process maps.  Now its time to record the other elements relating to the documentation and decisions.  Refer back to your process maps to add information to the  template provided – this can be completed by a small group or one lucky individual set the task.

The template provided is on excel which is great for creating filters (e.g. to find out the range of activity a role is responsible for) and easy to search; however it’s not very visual and does not show the route when a decision leads in a different direction.  There is plenty of mapping software out there and choose the one that suits you and your organisation – remember some of these will charge a licence fee and might need some training.  Also, don’t over complicate it as it will need to be followed.

Here is a sample created on Visio, on the contract change element:  

As well as Visio there is Miro, Lucidchart, Gliffy to name a few.  As always, please check with your IT department that its fine to download programmes!

You can also use the tried and tested traditional process mapping approach that uses different shapes and symbols that are universally recognised:  

Shape

Name

Use

Activity/Process

To represent a step/activity of a process.

Decision

To represent a decision that has to be made.

Start/End

To represent the start and end of a process.

Arrow

To represent the connection between two steps and the direction of the flow.

Document

To represent documents or information important in the process.

Part 2 – implementation

Now the really hard bit – implementing the change.  Sorry to say but it is unlikely you have a perfect process that needs no improvement.  However, some of the change needed will be quick wins that that be instigated immediately, and others where you might need to liaise with other departments.

Others improvements could be much bigger and even need a change in your constitution.  It could be your improvements are included in the council’s transformation plan with allocated resource and support.  This might mean making a case to your senior managers, and why it is important they are bought into the process mapping from the beginning knowing some change might be needed.

Inspiration example
Here's an improvement that was identified.

This is the process before business process mapping
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And here's the suggested improvement:

This example shows that even changes allowed for in the contract were being processed through the full governance, when the could be agreed and logged by the contract manager.
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You can read up more on how to create change management using behavioural science here but as a core principle, remember:

• Define the behaviour change you want
• Determine the barriers to that behaviour change happening
• Identify interventions to drive this change.

If you want to do further work to support change in your organisation its a good idea to use the Commercial Continuous Improvement Assessment Framework (CCIAF), which will enable you to self-assess your procurement and contracts function and give you a good understanding of how you can continue to improve it over time.
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Finally, an important part of the implementation of your work is to undergo a skills gap analysis. This will enable you to understand what types of knowledge and skills your team currently have compared to the optimal level of knowledge and skills needed.

For example, if not all relevant parties have training on your procurement software, this creates vulnerabilities in relying on a few people. Conducting a skills gap analysis will capture issues of capacity in your team so that you can then work with L&D to overcome any knowledge gaps. Please see Stage 9 for template for skills gap analysis.  

Here are some sample questions to ask the team to help you conduct your skills gap analysis