Process Improvement Procurement Plan
This is a practical guide to building a procurement plan for a process improvement project — what will be bought, how and from whom, adapted to the realities of improving an existing business process.
What a Procurement Plan is
A procurement plan is what will be bought, how and from whom. For the full concept and how it works in general, see Procurement Management. On a process improvement project it plays the same role, tuned to this kind of work.
Why it matters for a Process Improvement project
Process Improvement projects live or die on improving an existing business process. A well-built procurement plan gives the team a shared, explicit reference for exactly that — reducing ambiguity, aligning stakeholders, and making problems visible early enough to act. Skipping it, or doing it generically, is how process improvement projects drift into avoidable delay and cost.
What to include
- What to procure
- Contract types
- Selection criteria
- Timeline and SLAs
Process Improvement-specific considerations
Tailor the procurement plan to the risks that most often derail process improvement projects:
- Change resistance
- Measuring the baseline
- Scope discipline
Example
On a real process improvement project, the procurement plan would be shaped by improving an existing business process. In particular, it should explicitly account for the project’s biggest risks — change resistance, measuring the baseline, scope discipline — rather than treating them as afterthoughts.