Our State's First Agile Development Services Procurement (Giuseppe Morgana)

When we founded the New Jersey Office of Innovation in 2018, we realized we couldn’t transform government benefits and services without rethinking procurement. What if we applied the same iterative, human-centered design principles from our work as technologists to the process of procuring agile development contracts?

In 2021, we procured agile development services, a first for the state, to scale our work to improve the experience of businesses interacting with government. Most recently, we applied the same methods to rebuild New Jersey’s Unemployment Insurance system. We completed these procurements in a fraction of the time versus what was typically experienced for other technology initiatives.

Here are the top five lessons we’ve learned so far:

1. “Procurement is broken” isn’t actionable

“Procurement is broken” is often a catch-all for a wide number of challenges, but it is too vague and high-level to be actionable.

Consider how you can break down issues into smaller pieces. Try running low-cost, time-bound experiments to get a pulse on the organization’s readiness, and willingness, for change. What’s working? Where are the bottlenecks? Who can help create momentum? Do senior leaders support and enable this work?

A clear understanding of the context can help you develop thoughtful strategies to address root cause issues and move the work forward. As a check, does your approach:

• Clearly define the problem, vision and goals?
• Consider the readiness of the organization to translate a successful procurement into the desired outcomes?
• Meet all government contracting requirements?
• Include a framework for evaluating each proposal objectively, based on your goals?
• Set the future team (and product/service) up for success?

These questions help to frame the problem more holistically and ensure that attention is placed both on the underlying procurement processes and the supporting environment.

2. Take partnership seriously

Collaborate closely with agency subject-matter experts who understand the intricacies of the state and procurement rules and regulations.

We took a “one team” approach with our agency partners throughout the entire end-to-end procurement process—Innovation team members with product, design, and engineering expertise worked alongside leading subject-matter experts from the Office of Information Technology and the Department of the Treasury who understand the intricacies of state technology and procurement rules and regulations.

Partnering with state and procurement experts can help you uncover not only what is required, but also what channels are already available. In our case, using the pre-existing process for procuring via the GSA Schedule offered an effective way to access talent and services. We could follow a standard process while completing it within a fraction of the time similar procurements normally take.

3. Use meaningful evaluation criteria and practices

Evaluating proposals requires a deep commitment from the team to extensively review responses according to objective criteria.

We requested case studies, resumes, and code samples to inform our understanding of each vendor’s track record and experience in providing similar services. In addition to allowing time for independent reviews, highly structured evaluation sessions allowed the evaluation committee to combine perspectives, informing the ultimate selection.

We recommend resisting the pressure to spread out the evaluations over many weeks—a dedicated evaluation period kept everyone aligned and up-to-date on context. Streamlined scorecards and collaborative evaluation processes—like shared note-taking templates restating goals and evaluation criteria—also kept us on track during the evaluation period.

4. Remember you don’t have to start from scratch

Because we had other teams’ work to build from when we started, we could spend more time navigating challenges and opportunities specific to New Jersey.

Our first procurement started substantially with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Request for Procurement (RFP) linked below—and, to the extent they are helpful, we encourage others to use our documents as a starting point.

A few resources that were immensely helpful to our team:

• TechFAR samples
• Department of Veterans Affairs procurements
• 18F procurement materials

5. Expect to keep iterating

A key lesson learned during our first procurement: We can’t make a contingency plan for every scenario. Instead, we worked alongside our procurement teammates to create the first Request for Quotation (RFQ), merging together external materials and standard New Jersey materials. After our first procurement, an after-action process (similar to a retrospective) allowed us to capture lessons that directly informed our second procurement. We are now working to further streamline our processes. We believe these improvements will create internal efficiencies and also promote competition and interest in future procurements by reducing the burden on vendors.