Winning a government contract can be a game-changer for local small businesses. But confusing and inefficient processes can keep new firms, as well as small and BIPOC-owned firms, from being successful as City contractors. These inefficiencies also take up valuable staff time and resources.
This is why Seattle participated in the Bloomberg Philanthropies I-teams Procurement Cohort, a $1 million, two-year grant by Bloomberg Philanthropies to help transform our approach to buying. The Procurement Transformation project is a partnership between the Seattle Department of Finance and Administrative Services (FAS) and the Mayor’s Innovation and Performance Team, with technical assistance from the Harvard Kennedy School Government Performance Lab (GPL) and coaching calls from the Bloomberg Public Center for Innovation at Johns Hopkins University (BCPI). The project aims to transform City procurement to be more efficient, results-driven, equitable, and strategic.
Through this project, the City of Seattle made many important changes to make procurement more efficient, equitable, strategic, and results-driven. Along the way, we’ve built momentum to create a culture of procurement excellence here in Seattle, encouraging staff at all levels to embrace innovation and creative thinking to achieve great results. We’ve also learned many lessons.
In this “cookbook” of recipes for procurement excellence, we want to share with you some of our accomplishments and learnings over this two-year project. The hope of this book is that it spreads good ideas, sparks inspiration, and encourages all of us in our efforts to continue transforming procurement.
Thank you to all of the partners who have been instrumental in leading this work. Procurement transformation requires continuous improvement. We encourage procurement change agents across the City of Seattle to continue to look for opportunities to make procurement more efficient, equitable, strategic, and results-driven for the residents of Seattle.
If you have ideas, questions, or insights to share after reading this book, please keep the conversation going! Contact us at performance@seattle.gov.