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What is it?

Engaging stakeholders across your organisation to include the skills and experience of colleagues and users is important in any procurement. In technology procurements in particular, working with stakeholders is critical to defining a holistic set of business needs and organisational outcomes.

As mentioned in the previous guidance on Planning, all technology procurements should strive to create a:

• Deep understanding of the business problem(s) you’re trying to solve — and who are the users that will be impacted
• Set of clear and measurable organisational outcomes — ensuring your team understands the goal of the procurement.

Engaging stakeholders in these two key activities will provide the foundation for a specification that outlines: what the solution ought to do; and how you can measure its success.

Why does it matter?

In technology projects, working across your organisation to define user needs and procurement outcomes is essential.

GDS guidance outlines the benefits of engaging broad organisational stakeholders in a procurement as:

• Leads to better choices at each stage of the procurement
• Strengthens your understanding of your requirements and the market
• Speeds up decision making and budget approvals
• Reduces the risk of individual corruption, particularly for high-value projects.