Developing a course on procurement management -- seeking advice!

Given that it accounts for more than 40 percent of the U.S. federal government budget (and similar fractions in many state and local governments), procurement receives rather little attention, in terms of either teaching or research, even in public administration or public policy programs at U.S. universities. There are procurement-law related courses at a number of law schools, and Florida Atlantic University offers an online "executive certificate" in public procurement. But relatively few public administration programs, and to my knowledge no public policy program, offer even one course in government procurement.

The most interesting academic work that relates to procurement is research by the Nobel Prize-winning economist Oliver Williamson that is very relevant to the make-buy decision, and by extension somewhat relevant to procurement management. (For a good introduction, see his book Markets and Hierarchies.)

Basically, Williamson argues that when it is hard to specify exactly what the customer wants, and where producers and/or users undertake specialized investments to produce the product or service in question, the market is likely to be a poor way to organize production, and instead production is likely best handled in-house. Of course, readers will recognize that important parts of what government buys -- weapons systems obviously, and many complex IT systems -- are of exactly the sort Williamson argues are less appropriate for contracting in the first place. We should not, therefore, be surprised that contracting for such products and services is difficult, though Williamson also discusses some ways to manage relationships when customers do buy from the outside.

There are also some public administration scholars who work on contracting, but by and large they have not gone much beyond Williamson's framework. Interestingly, one sees among these scholars the same kind of debates about trust and control one sees in practical government procurement policy debates. Perhaps the best book by public-administration academics on government contracting is Trevor Brown, Matt Potoski, and Dave Van Slyke's book on the Coast Guard Deepwater project, Complex Contracting.

At any rate ... as I indicated in my last blog post, I am in the very early stages of delving into these academic waters, starting to think about preparing a course, or a short course (we call it a module), for the Harvard Kennedy School on managing procurement. I will keep blog readers posted as I proceed.

Meanwhile, I would like to solicit suggestions -- from practitioners (contracting and program management), academics and others -- about what I should include in this course. Where does the government most need to get better? What would you yourself like to know more about? What should a newbie learn? Are there case studies you would recommend, both good and bad? All suggestions welcomed!