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Lean Agile Procurement

When starting as a freelancer, people warned me that I might get stuck. Some colleagues at the time were afraid that my development might come to a halt. Without the R&D back-up of a company or corporation, how would I come up with new ideas?

It turns out there is nothing to worry about. Over the past years, I have been privileged to work with a great group of people on an initiative we branded Agile Sourcing. And recently we came across a concept that fits well into our vision. Therefore I’m proud to announce we added another asset to our toolbox: Lean Agile Procurement (LAP).

In a 2-day workshop, Mirko Kleiner was our trainer and he introduced us in the tools and concepts. LAP is an alternative to more traditional ways of procurement. As the name suggests, it leverages concepts from both Agile and Lean. Mirko had a tough group with experienced procurement and sourcing professionals in the room. We scrutinized his claims and challenged his tools and the general approach. But truth be told: the workshop was a great experience and we all came out very positively. Each of us concluded that Lean Agile Procurement is something we want to start using and bring to the Dutch Market.

Getting results earlier

LAP Potential Profit (Cost of delay)

That doesn’t mean LAP is the answer to all challenges in today’s complex procurement market. We talked at length about the sweet spot for Lean Agile Procurement. It provides the most value in a situation where requirements are to some extent flexible and the context has a certain complexity. The overall promise is an earlier Go-to-market. With that, the costs of procurement are significantly lower and the potential profits of any initiative will be incurred earlier.

The combination of these factors should be enough to consider LAP when entering into any procurement initiative. As a freshly ‘Certified Lean-Agile-Procurement Practitioner’, I’m happy to support you in that conversation.