It is conventional wisdom that competitive tendering will deliver the best value outcome, particularly in government procurement, and is often the only mechanism employed in pursuit of that value. Often this results from an overly constrained interpretation of government procurement guidelines that interprets tendering as the only viable process to achieve competitive outcomes.

Much of the western world’s thinking, strategy development, management and problem solving is based on exhaustive analysis — the search for evidence to formulate the way forward. The flaw? The future cannot be designed by analysis of the past: the analysis serves to constrain, rather than facilitate, innovation. Design for the future calls for the integration of innovation, judgement and decision-making. This integration of social and analytical — we term Integrative Development (InD©).

The last decade saw the rise of major outsourcing efforts with varying degrees of success. The outsourcing arena is changing. Smaller, more selective arrangements, tailored to an organisation’s specific needs, are the norm. This paper looks at seven considerations to achieve a successful sourcing arrangement.

Programs, large or small, public sector or commercial, will almost certainly be faced with a level of disagreement at some stage. It is a natural part of doing business, but it is when disagreement and misalignment is not resolved in a timely manner that the issues become problematic. At Kiah, we deal with deadlock, disputes, rapid establishment, re-alignment and recovery: public, private and across the divide as neutral facilitators and mediators or as advocates.

(The art of managing consultants and lawyers)

Throughout our work we engage a variety of management consulting and legal services, either directly or through our client. Regularly we are handed the results of previous engagements, too often accompanied with statements like: ‘this is OK but not as useful as we had hoped’, or ‘doesn’t quite answer the question’.