Archives: Ideas | Public Knowledge

Procure Better Systems

We have often been asked to help a public-sector client out of a jam with a multi-million-dollar system procurement effort. Each time, it was too late because their procurement design or evaluation resulted in the selection of a vendor that did not meet their needs. These agencies constructed their…

Should Government Be in the IT Business?

We asked the Chief Information Officer (CIO) of a large state health and human services agency an interesting question recently: “Do you need a large information technology (IT) organization?” At the time, the CIO was engaged in the procurement of a Medicaid Management Information System (MMIS).…

Do You Really Need an MMIS System?

In an effort to manage the healthcare payments for those served by Medicaid, state Medicaid agencies are increasingly required to act as experts in technology. They have to implement and operate Medicaid Management Information Systems (MMIS). These systems have increasingly become more expensive and…

Playing Fast and Loose with Independence on IV&V Projects

More States are recognizing the value of having an unbiased, outside, opinion expressed about their systems development projects. Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) is a standardized approach to providing these opinions. A key tenet of IV&V is “Independence”. Independence The…

Why Invest in Procurement

Through more than 30 years of experience, we have identified best practices to improve procurement processes. Investing in sound procurement practices can reduce cost and effort over time. Private-sector industries give considerable weight to procurement and supply chain management because even a modest…

Are Your Procurements Failing?

In recent years, states have noticed a decrease in the number of vendor responses to Requests for Proposals (RFPs). This means states have fewer vendors to choose from, and often the choices have higher costs. Some states believe that vendors perceive less financial gain in doing business with…

Predictive Quality Assurance

One of the biggest complaints we have with the way Quality Assurance is typically performed for large systems projects is that the process is reactive rather than predictive. This means most QA consultants wait for failure to happen (for example a project deliverable has defects), report the defect…

Performance Measurement

Performance measurement is a systematic ongoing process to assess how well an organization, project, or program is doing its job. It applies objective (typically quantitative) information to help managers and customers determine whether the expected results are being achieved. Measurement is a part…

Being Late on A Project Matters

We have noticed a growing trend toward accepting that projects will be late as the norm. Recently we’ve run into several projects that were going to be late and the consequences were grave. Some of those consequences include: You (as project manager, sponsor, project team member) lose credibility…

What is More Important: People or Technology?

Putting new technology in place requires two things: getting the system ready for the people AND getting the people ready for the system. Government organizations often focus more on getting technology ready than the people. We have been on both sides of this equation and will tell you: the technology…

Getting the Right Number of Staff In Your Organization

We were praised by one of our clients (the head of a state health and human service agency) for our work helping the agency rethink both its staffing levels and business processes. We refer to this work as a “staffing study”. The director stated that our work was not only valuable in its own right…

MMIS as a Service: Don’t Leave Your People Behind

We know states are currently exploring options for Medicaid Management Information Systems (MMIS). Options for states include: Keeping their current MMIS and fiscal agent provider, Procuring a takeover vendor to operate the current MMIS, Procuring a new MMIS in the traditional model, Partnering with…

Benefits of IV&V

We are often asked “what are the benefits of performing Independent Validation and Verification (IV&V) on a software project”. Though there are many, we routinely cite four to our clients: Early detection. IV&V identifies both problems and opportunities for improvement to processes and…

Using Agile Outside Software Development

IT World has an interesting article about using the tools and techniques of agile development and scrum for projects other than software development. Many of the techniques are similar to PK’s own Predictive Management (PM) toolset. For example, the use of regular short meetings (stand ups in…

Too Many Project Risks?

Do you feel overwhelmed after meetings with your independent verification and validation (IV&V) or quality assurance (QA) consultant? Do your IV&V or QA reports look like a long laundry list of all the things that might go wrong with your project? Without clarity on the most important risks…

How to Make Procurements Less Painful

One of our clients recently asked us to give them some lessons learned and recommendations on how to make their procurements less painful. We’ve worked with this client on their procurements for a very long time, so we have a unique view of their work. We got our team together to brainstorm and identify…

Procurement Staff Development

Procurement staff development yields great results. Procurement staff development is a wise investment. Leading public procurement agencies are raising the level of professional development offered to employees through training, certification, and adoption of clearly defined standards. Prepare your…