Organizing the Acquisition
The court, during the acquisition process, must specify project objectives clearly. All of the important interests of the court that may be affected by the procurement must be identified. To ensure that as many interests as possible are represented during the procurement, the court should locate managers who can articulate specific areas of concern and incorporate them into the acquisition committee or team. If, for example, a proposed court system were dedicated to in-house criminal case processing. Selection of a proprietary, closed software solution incapable of exchanging data with the prosecutor's office could result in serious data duplication, error-prone activities, and severely limited system growth. Someone representing the prosecutor's office, even informally, during the definition of a criminal court's system objectives may eliminate many potential long-term implementation problems.
The acquisition team, in all likelihood, will be composed of individuals who hold key positions on either a policy committee or a user group. For example, the project manager's many roles with a policy committee and a user group make this person a valuable, if not indispensable, member of the acquisition team. Including certain individuals from policy and user committees on the acquisition team does not preclude them from continuing their work with these groups. As far as possible, individuals selected for these assignments should have the authority to make commitments for the organization.
Once the acquisition team is created, important areas of responsibility should be assigned to appropriate team members. A team leader, probably the project manager, should be appointed. The team leader will meet with senior court management and members of the policy committee to report the progress of the project and will ensure that team assignments are completed on time and that required decisions are made.
The vendor liaison is a particularly critical appointment. This individual represents the court during contract negotiations and should have final decision-making authority. Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of public-sector marketing for vendors is determining who has final authority. In the interest of projecting fairness and unity, the court should define clearly the vendor liaison role to all interested parties as early as possible in the procurement process. The court also should, at the beginning of the process, indicate any additional levels of approval that will be necessary before a final decision is made. This will relieve some of the stress that often accompanies vendor selection and contract negotiation.
Davis et al. identifies at least four types of individuals, representing specific areas of concern, who should be represented on any procurement team.3
- A purchasing agent who knows the purchasing procedures employed by the court or government department where the project will occur. This person seeks to eliminate or overcome the bottlenecks that often accompany public-sector purchases.
- An information technology department representative either an in-house IT technician who is familiar with the court's processing needs or an outside consultant. The IT department representative prepares detailed technical specifications for the purchase and translates the vendor's response for the team's non-technical members.
- A lawyer, who represents the legal component in the contracting process. Too often, lawyers are called in after the transaction is completed, when pressure exists to approve the transaction, notwithstanding its contractual shortcomings. A lawyer should be involved at the beginning of the acquisition process to maximize the court's bargaining leverage and to negotiate favorable contractual clauses.
- Selected system participants, such as the clerk of courts, the court administrator, or the presiding judge. Although these participants may not be deeply involved in all phases of the acquisition process, they know what they want from the project, and they must live with it.
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