PLENARY - Fear Less, Do More
A talk that will change your perception on fear and inspire you to take action
Born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela to a family of holocaust survivors, Michelle was accustomed to living with fear. But when she moved to New York, Michelle quickly realized that NYC was not for the fearful.
In efforts to re-write her definition of fear, Michelle set out to face 100 fears in 100 days. Half way into the journey, the project was discovered by the media, becoming an instant viral phenomenon.
Michelle completed her 100th challenge on a TEDx’s stage. This helped her turn a personal project into a global movement. Michelle discovered that inspiring others to go after their fears was her new calling. She is now touring the world speaking at companies, schools and organizations teaching audiences how to step outside their comfort zones as a way to tap into their full potential.
She is also the Founder of Hello Fears, a platform aimed at making the world a braver place through a mix of live events, video series, podcast interviews, user-generated content, and daily inspirational posts.
Adapting to Change: Skills Analysis and Training at Sound Transit
Are your procurements becoming more technically complex and expensive? Are you experiencing increased public scrutiny and pressure to reduce the procurement schedule to meet the demands of your customers? Explore how Sound Transit’s Design and Construction Contracts team is incorporating new skills to better meet the demands of the procurement function through strategic planning, skills analysis, training opportunities, and transforming hiring practices to ensure our team has the skills necessary to excel in this fast paced and changing environment.
The Future is Now: Best Practices in Cooperative Purchasing
The Cooperative Committee of the Arizona State Capitol Chapter of NIGP has been discussing best practices for cooperative purchasing for nearly ten years. Developed to ensure actionable items that public procurement professionals can use immediately, our best practice documents were created with the input of procurement professionals across state, county, municipality, and school districts. Discussing the various best practice methodologies and guiding documents that were created by our Chapter Cooperative Committee, explore how you can engage in cooperative purchasing at an actionable level, developing new and useful cooperative purchasing strategies in this lecture-styled session.
Market Volatility: Is It Impacting Your Organization?
- Tuesday
- 9:45 AM - 11:00 AM
- Level - Beginner
- Track - Cornerstones
- Speakers - The NIGP Business Council
- Presentation
Every day, we hear and read about events happening across North America that are having a direct impact on our lives, business, and governments. In this “new normal” world, it’s beneficial—and almost imperative—to examine how various industries and social drivers impact success, especially with the unpredictability of the world within the larger supplier-procurement community. Join us as we explore these volatilities, identifying and discussing how various industry and procurement strategies can help navigate these rough waters to ensure strategic triumph.
Taking A Seat at the Table: FEMA Procurement Knowledge for Your Recovery Team
Over 80% of FEMA’s Public Assistance dollars are allocated to the purchase of goods and professional services to recover/rebuild property lost to disaster. While testimonials run rampant concerning funding de-obligation, the procurement department is oftentimes pulled into recovery planning much too late. Join us and learn how you can take a seat at the recovery planning table, discussing proofing your procurement processes, required cost/price analyses, application of the most restrictive procurement and contracting rules (i.e. federal vs. state vs. local), and practical ways to meet the Six Affirmative Steps to assure that minority-owned and women-owned businesses are afforded contracting opportunities.
The Politics of Procurement: Creating and Achieving Strategic Value in the Public Sector
- Tuesday
- 9:45 AM - 11:00 AM
- Level - Advanced
- Track - Cornerstone
- Speaker - Sean Carroll
- Presentation
- Recorded Session. (This session is being recorded for VCON Forum Select offered in October 2019)
Public procurement professionals are oftentimes responsible not only for fulfilling the procurement function on a strategic, objective-oriented level, but also for navigating requests from leadership, legislative bodies, lobbyists, and supplier advocacy groups. To effectively orchestrate a response to these myriad tasks, leaders in the public sector should upward manage procurement’s values to help guide project planning and policy decisions from the beginning. Join us as we discuss strategies for mitigating inappropriate influence on the procurement process while empowering the field to pro-actively mitigate change, all without forcing procurement officers to say no to leadership, in this advanced, lecture-styled session.
Trending in the Right Direction: The Procurement Process through Digital Eyes
From enterprise software systems to website projects, technology procurements are increasingly becoming part of the procurement function’s responsibility. But with the industry changing annually, it can be difficult to stay up to date on the latest tech trends. Join us as we discuss common contract formation and management problems for technology procurements, exploring strategies and tools that can help mitigate even the trickiest risks in this case-study focused session.
CPI or PPI? BLS Index Data for Contract Price Adjustment
Are you using Consumer Price Index (CPI) or Producer Price Index (PPI) data correctly? Do you know if you have chosen the right index, and do you know where to find cost-free, objective data for contracting and analysis? When faced with these and other questions surrounding contract pricing, procurement managers may turn to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Learn to identify index data, including the CPI and PPI, and when and how you may use it to account for inflation in contracts in this data-driven session, reviewing the checklist items you need to protect your entity from unmitigated data risks.
Coloring Inside the Lines: Government Ethics for Procurement Professionals
Increasingly, state and local governments are coming under fire for lapses in ethical judgement. Whether picked up by local news or through a national profile, ethical violations are oftentimes as serious—if not more so—than their legal counterparts, creating volatile and unpredictable situations that embarrass both entities and procurement professionals alike. Join us as we discuss the ethical principles which drive public procurement decisions and processes, exploring real-life case studies and applying hypothetical solutions in this introductory, discussion-led session.
Digitally Disrupted: How to Prepare for the Digital Supply Chain Transformation
Procurement professionals clearly see a tsunami of new technology coming at them and are scrambling to develop a strategy to deal with it. The increasing need and desire to have access to the right information, at the right time, and in the right context from anywhere to promote responsiveness are predicated seamless information flows in the supply chain. As such, IT capabilities that can promote a seamless exchange of information are crucial for effective and timely responses to changes in both internal and external customers and supplier demands. Therein lies the value and potential of an always-on digital supply chain. This session will stretch your thinking about the value and impact of digital supply chains and their implications for organizations. Participants will gain a better understanding of how changing customer and consumer behaviors and expectations could prove to be costly for organizations that are unable to undergo digital transformation, including digitalization of their supply chain. If you've wondered about the potential "Amazon effect" on your organization, this is the session for you.
The Scrappy Pursuit of Procurement Excellence in the Concrete Jungle
Let’s face it, few people love procurement as much as you do. Most others just want the process to be easy and quick, so they can get on with their core business. It’s time for a complete reset and barriers to doing business with government must be removed. Discover how the Big Apple’s civic reformers built the case for change, then launched and now maintain momentum on its multi-year transformation initiative, the Procurement and Sourcing Solutions Portal (PASSPort). Join us and learn how a few New Yorkers leveraged experience-design, best-in-class technology, people and change management techniques, and ‘whatever-it-takes’ grit to tackle decades-old issues in a highly regulated, paper-based, $20B procurement ecosystem.
Can You Hear Me Now: Improving Protests with a Hearing Officer
Bid protests make an unpleasant end to the procurement process, potentially delaying the award and contract management of a procurement for days if not months. To resolve this common situation, some entities make use of a hearing officer, whose sole responsibility it is to listen to both sides of the dispute and render a decision. Join us as we learn about how hearing officers can have an incredible impact on protests, exploring how lessons learned can help us write better solicitation documents in this case-study driven lecture.
Teamwork Makes the Dream Work: Negotiating with Teams in Public Procurement
Negotiations can be an intimidating part of any procurement, but when you realize that you’re not in the process alone, it’s not as bad as you probably imagined it. While negotiations might start with you, they are typically most successful when you enlist the help of a negotiations team. Come explore how you can select the best members of your negotiations team, what roles they play, and how you put together a negotiation plan in this fun, interactive session, discovering the basic roles and skills you need to become an effective negotiator.
Market Volatility: Is It Impacting Your Organization?
- Tuesday
- 1:45 PM - 3:00 PM
- Level - Beginner
- Track - Cornerstones
- Speakers - The NIGP Business Council
- Presentation
Every day, we hear and read about events happening across North America that are having a direct impact on our lives, business, and governments. In this “new normal” world, it’s beneficial—and almost imperative—to examine how various industries and social drivers impact success, especially with the unpredictability of the world within the larger supplier-procurement community. Join us as we explore these volatilities, identifying and discussing how various industry and procurement strategies can help navigate these rough waters to ensure strategic triumph.
Procurement Transformation: Modular Tools for Faster Results
Procurement teams across the world are increasingly realizing that paper-based processes are no longer sustainable. Even as more organizations adopt digital bid and RFx submission tools, more is needed to support compliance and transparency across disconnected departments, multiple locations, and evaluations from various stakeholders. As the pace of digitization accelerates, where should procurement teams who are new to the eProcurement landscape even begin? Join this conversation to learn how three procurement leaders tackled this question at their own organizations. Hear why they opted for modular, cloud-based solutions over traditional procurement suites, and gain insight into how they were able to ensure fast implementation times, unlock a quick return on investment, and achieve benefits such as automated compliance and audit tracking, and high user adoption and engagement. Attend this session to hear their firsthand perspectives on the transformative impact that eProcurement solutions can have on the procurement function.
So Many Choices: Determining the Right Construction Project Delivery Method for You
- Tuesday
- 1:45 PM - 3:00 PM
- Level - Intermediate
- Track - Construction
- Speakers - Joe Tommie, CPPO and John Adler, CPPO
- Presentation
- Recorded Session. (This session is being recorded for VCON Forum Select offered in October 2019)
In the recent past, the traditional design-bid-build method was the default—and predominantly only—project delivery method for procuring public construction contracts. Today, choosing the right construction project delivery method can be very challenging, especially when you consider not only the abundance of delivery methods that have become common over the last few years but also the legal requirements, complexities of the project, project scheduling, price, responsibility, and expertise of potential contractors. Join us as we provide an overview of each of the new-age major construction project delivery methods, discussing necessary factors for each methodology and how you can make them work for you and your entity in this interactive, lecture-style session.
Buying Digital Services: Contracts as the Multiplier for Civic Tech Transformation
Bringing modern technology into the government is hard—it's tough understanding the technology, finding the right suppliers, and allowing scope flexibility while ensuring that your procuring the commodities that your entity needs, let alone every other facet of technology procurement! Despite these challenges and the increasingly smaller budgets of public governments, a civic technology movement is underway, one that’s looking to shake up the status quo of long, expensive IT contracts that suck up tax payer dollars and deliver marginal value to citizens. Hear how each of these problems are being solved by practitioners like you in this experience-driven session, discovering how government procurements are a force multiplier in the civic technology transformation.
Procurement Methods and Internal Controls to Meet the CFR 200 Requirements: A Focus on Automated Cost Analysis
Local and state governments are subject to the uniform grant guidance of CFR 200, a federal law that details many requirements that impact procurement processes and programs. To acquire federal funding from several agencies, including Health and Human Services, Education, FEMA, NASA, and the Agriculture Departments, the Harris County Department of Education (HCDE) adopted several policies to better coordinate and comply with this code. Join us as we review the implemented policies and procedures with emphasis on the cost analysis and some exceptions to the CFR 200, exploring how HCDE created an automated workflow to document its cost analysis review for its audit files in this informative and thought-provoking session.
Innovating New Markets: Engaging the Start-up Community in Creating New Solutions
The City of Norfolk is joining jurisdictions across the nation to modernize their government, advancing economic development and fostering a "can-do" culture through innovative procurement. Through its Startup in Residence program, Norfolk has streamlined procurement to reduce the time it takes to respond to an RFP dramatically and made procurement more inclusive and attracting to innovators from around the world. Join us as we discuss how the city fostered this can-do, innovators-welcome attitude, exploring how collaborative periods resulted in unprecedented growth in this unique, case-study driven session.
Keeping Your Rows in Order: Tips and Tricks with Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Excel is packed full of features designed to help you create, edit, and format a wide range of worksheet projects. With all of its power, however, many Excel shortcuts, tips, and techniques are not obvious or intuitive. Join this session to become more productive with Excel, find out how to simplify editing and formatting actions, explore how to customize your workspace, and learn time saving steps and shortcuts to quickly and easily get your work done.
Networking to Success: Establishing Effective Mentoring Relationships
Do you ever find yourself asking, “Am I where I want to be in public procurement?” or “Where do I want to be in the next few years, and what have I learned that I can leave behind?” If so, you’re not alone—our community is filled with amazing, public procurement professionals who have both blazed trails for future leaders and sought to learn from those who forged the path. Join this unique, strong panel of trailblazers as we discuss how to develop, create, and maximize effective partnerships, exploring how to build and find a mentor in this panel-led discussion. We’ll also be sharing exciting news about NIGP’s Mentorship Committee and the great service and tools the committee will be providing to the NIGP community!
Contract Compliance Program: The Lost Child of Procurement
Recently, the City of Tucson implemented its CAMP (Contract Administration and Management Program) initiative on a city-wide level. Designed to close the gap between contract formation, contract management, and post-contract compliance, the program engages the cradle to grave procurement function across all department levels of the city, exploring how we as stewards of the public trust can better partner with the internal customers (departments) and external customers (suppliers) to reduce potential risks in post award contract management. Discover what market and entity-specific research is critical to the success of your procurement and compliance program, identifying real and potential challenges with pro-active resolutions, in this results-oriented, interactive lecture-styled session.
Procuring Diversity 101: Basic Knowledge about Supplier Diversity Programs
This session provides an overview of the legal and administrative elements of government supplier diversity programs. Join us as we discuss the history, legal framework, recent litigation trends, compliance basics, best practices, and other introductory elements for procurement diversity.
Strategic Delivery: Strategies to Optimize Capital Project Outcomes
Across North America, aging infrastructure is increasingly in need of repair. But with funding sources limited and governments struggling to maintain affordability while increasing levels of service, its never been more important—or economical—for entities to engage in collaborative delivery models for planning, design, and construction of public works projects. Comparing the usability of design-bid-build, CMAR, and design-build, join us as we explore strategies to better allocate risks between the owner, the designer, and the contractor, promoting the advantages of collaborative delivery methods for capital improvement projects to develop best value procurement strategies in the case-study, lecture-led session from the Design Build Institute of American.
Procurement Manual: Is it Enough?
The development and maintenance of a procurement manual is an essential part of managing the procurement process for your organization. This document, designed to facilitate an understanding of the value of the central procurement office, provides guidance on processes and procedures for procurement functions throughout the organization. But is having this manual posted on your intranet enough? Are your clients familiar with the content, and do they understand it? Explore ways to engage your internal clients and help them understand the value in learning how to utilize your procurement manual in this case study, lecture-driven session.
We Saved You a Seat: Become the FEMA Procurement Expert Your Team Can’t Do Without
FEMA recently shared that disaster cost recovery training is one of the weakest links in emergency management. With many de-obligated dollars attributed to procurement, the procurement professional’s guidance is invaluable toward protecting FEMA recovery dollars. Join us as we dive into topics that will arm you to not only take a seat at the recovery planning table, but also inspire your organization to save you a seat because of your advanced knowledge navigating FEMA recovery pitfalls in this lecture-style session.
Taming Your Inbox: Performance Management with Microsoft Outlook
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when dealing with email, especially when managing your Inbox can suck up so much time and productivity out of a day. Do you struggle to get through all of your messages so you can focus on other priorities? Have you ever missed time-critical email that got lost in the middle of spam and entity broadcasts? In this session, learn tips and strategies in Microsoft Outlook to help organize and prioritize your messages, quickly search and navigate through Outlook, and customize Outlook to save time and effort. Also, discover how automating responses, using contact groups, and creating tasks and appointments from email can help you get your time back.
Expanding Your Circle: Curating Multi-Chapter Experiences
Chapter-hosted professional development is the hallmark of the public procurement function, emphasizing personal and professional growth not only in relation to our entities but also to the communities we support. Fostering these relationships, however, can be difficult, especially when you consider how different jurisdictions and localities are impacted by their local laws, regulations, and geographic nuances. Join this multi-geographic panel of chapter leaders and learn how they promoted multi-chapter events to break down geographic barriers, fostering best practice guidelines and interpersonal collaboration in this panel-led discussion.
What Does That Mean: Explaining Financial Management for the Procurement Professional
Procurement and finance share many of the same goals, work together on a daily basis, and in many cases, are even located in the same department. There are times, however, when it can seem like procurement and finance officers are not only misaligned, but also speaking a different language. Designed for the procurement professional looking to better understand the terminology, business processes, and challenges faced by finance, this session seeks to bridge the terminology gap between our two professions in order to work better with accounting, budget, and finance counterparts. Join us as we build upon the procurement professionals’ technical knowledge of financial topics, identify areas to improve the efficiencies between procurement and finance processes, and develop leadership competencies to support the long-term goals of the organization in building sustainable governments and thriving communities.
The Hot Seat: Challenges and Opportunities in Public Procurement
- Tuesday
- 3:15 PM - 4:30 PM
- Level - Beginner
- Track - Cornerstones
- Speaker - John Walters
Across North America, public procurement professionals are adapting to a new, innovative procurement era. Concepts like eProcurement and best value are increasingly becoming default across jurisdictions, and the new procurement paradigm has radically altered the challenges—and opportunities—of this critical profession. Join several of procurement’s rock-star experts for an informative look at current topics and opportunities throughout the procurement function, exploring how you can adapt and overcome to put your entity on the cutting edge in this panel-styled session.
Keeping Up With Change: Drafting Code, Rules, and Policies to Effectuate Procurement Transformation
Public procurement professionals can directly, or indirectly, assist in drafting changes to code (statute), administrative rules, or entity policy to effectuate change in the procurement profession. When done correctly and consciously, these changes can have impactful, applicable influence on the field, changing how public procurement professionals engage with their jurisdictions. Join us in this case study-driven sessions as we explore how drafted changes to the Utah Procurement Code, Administrative Rule, and additional policies and procedures updated how the Utah State Board of Education addresses procurement issues in a changing world.