Challenge & selection: My employer — a multinational corporation is facing the challenge of  contracting IT-professionals, such as programmers or IT-Consultants at a decent daily rate to support  its endeavours in the digital transformation. Even highly standardized profiles with a lot of  competition on the market are purchased at higher daily rates than necessary. The main reason for  this is the human factor. Departments in demand for IT-talent prefer to purchase professionals they  are already familiar with. This limits the competition between the vendors and lowers the  negotiating power of the procurement department. In the same time the company has to follow  strict public procurement regulations which make it legally very complicated to avoid competition.   In order to ensure that in the future all IT-service provider are selected through competition strictly  to the organisation's procurement processes and public procurement regulations, a dynamic  procurement platform for IT-professionals shall be designed.   The main challenge before designing such a platform is to identify all stakeholders involved and  convince them to adopt such a solution. Therefore the mind mapping tool has been selected. A mind  map is a diagram which is used to visually organize interrelated information. In this specific case it  allowed to quickly determine all the stakeholders involved and structure according to their  department, influence and position regarding such a solution.

Application: At first I started with main topic of the mind map in the centre “stakeholder of a  dynamic purchasing platform. Then I added new trees for each department or business unit which  holds an interest in such a platform. Afterwards I marked those stakeholders green which would  support such purchasing platform and those who are sceptical of it have been marked red. Lastly, I  the potential pros and cons of each stakeholder for or against a dynamic procurement platform and  added potential arguments to convince them.

Insight: The mind mapping tool helped me to identify stakeholders I wouldn’t have thought about  while in the same not forget about those which already have been identified. Furthermore, it helped  me realise that barely a department or business unit has only supporting views regarding a  procurement platform. Mostly, all of them are afraid change in the procurement process might limit  their possibilities to get their preferred IT-professional in the future. Furthermore, it helped me  realise that such a platform would not only be beneficial to temporarily contract IT-service provider  but would also help the HR-department to find and manage potential employees across all  professions.

Approach: I would definitely apply the mind mapping tool again when it comes to quickly get an  overview of a topic and structure my thoughts or insights accordingly to it. Nevertheless, a lot of  information I added to the mind map was gathered by interviewing involved stakeholders. The  problem here was that for them it was hard to grasp the actual problem to contract IT-professionals  without competition and following the public procurement regulations. Also, it was hard for them to  envision a procurement platform. Therefore, I would add the visulation tool next time to create a  common understanding of a given problem and potential solutions to it.


Challenge & selection : My employer — a multinational corporation is facing the challenge of contracting IT - professionals , such as programmers or IT - Consultants at a decent daily rate to support its endeavours in the digital transformation . Even highly standardized profiles with a lot of competition on the market are purchased at higher daily rates than necessary . The main reason for this is the human factor . Departments in demand for IT - talent prefer to purchase professionals they are already familiar with . This limits the competition between the vendors and lowers the negotiating power of the procurement department . In the same time the company has to follow strict public procurement regulations which make it legally very complicated to avoid competition . In order to ensure that in the future all IT - service provider are selected through competition strictly to the organisation 's procurement processes and public procurement regulations , a dynamic procurement platform for IT - professionals shall be designed . The main challenge before designing such a platform is to identify all stakeholders involved and convince them to adopt such a solution . Therefore the mind mapping tool has been selected . A mind map is a diagram which is used to visually organize interrelated information . In this specific case it allowed to quickly determine all the stakeholders involved and structure according to their department , influence and position regarding such a solution . Application : At first I started with main topic of the mind map in the centre “ stakeholder of a dynamic purchasing platform . Then I added new trees for each department or business unit which holds an interest in such a platform . Afterwards I marked those stakeholders green which would support such purchasing platform and those who are sceptical of it have been marked red . Lastly , I the potential pros and cons of each stakeholder for or against a dynamic procurement platform and added potential arguments to convince them . Insight : The mind mapping tool helped me to identify stakeholders I would n’t have thought about while in the same not forget about those which already have been identified . Furthermore , it helped me realise that barely a department or business unit has only supporting views regarding a procurement platform . Mostly , all of them are afraid change in the procurement process might limit their possibilities to get their preferred IT - professional in the future . Furthermore , it helped me realise that such a platform would not only be beneficial to temporarily contract IT - service provider but would also help the HR - department to find and manage potential employees across all professions . Approach : I would definitely apply the mind mapping tool again when it comes to quickly get an overview of a topic and structure my thoughts or insights accordingly to it . Nevertheless , a lot of information I added to the mind map was gathered by interviewing involved stakeholders . The problem here was that for them it was hard to grasp the actual problem to contract IT - professionals without competition and following the public procurement regulations . Also , it was hard for them to envision a procurement platform . Therefore , I would add the visulation tool next time to create a common understanding of a given problem and potential solutions to it .