Integrated Team Approach

When you're managing a complex government contract, pulling together people from different departments and specialties isn't just helpful—it's often the difference between success and costly delays. An integrated team approach brings together procurement officers, technical experts, legal advisors, and program managers to work as a cohesive unit rather than passing files back and forth. While you won't find this exact term defined in the PSPC Supply Manual, the practice itself has become increasingly common in federal procurement.

How It Works

The concept gained traction through various procurement modernization efforts. In their 2018 report on modernizing federal procurement for SMEs, the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates highlighted the Agile Procurement Team model, which relies on multi-disciplinary procurement project teams to handle complex requirements. This isn't about having everyone in the same room all the time—it's about breaking down silos so that when a technical question arises, you're not waiting three weeks for an answer from another department.

Here's where it gets practical: PWGSC (now PSPC) developed this approach particularly for informatics procurement through vehicles like TBIPS and SBIPS. These frameworks essentially require coordination between your technical people who understand the IT requirements and procurement specialists who know the contracting rules. According to the 2009-2010 Procurement Practices Review, commodity teams formed under this approach typically include representatives from high-volume spend departments, technical experts, and sometimes even industry stakeholders to develop better standing offers and supply arrangements.

What does this look like day-to-day? Your project manager isn't just writing requirements in isolation and tossing them over the fence to procurement. The procurement officer sits down early—sometimes during project planning—to flag potential issues with competition requirements or trade agreement thresholds. Your legal team reviews terms and conditions while the technical experts are still refining specifications, not after everything's locked down. Everyone talks to each other. Revolutionary, right?

Key Considerations

• Resource commitment is real. You can't just assign someone to a team for "a few hours here and there"—effective integration requires dedicated time, especially during critical procurement phases like RFP development and evaluation.

• Authority levels need clarification upfront. When your team includes people from different departments and classifications, who makes the final call on scope changes or evaluation criteria? Sort this out before you start, not when a decision is needed urgently.

• Documentation becomes more complex but more valuable. With multiple contributors, you need clear records of who advised what and when, particularly for audit purposes or if a challenge arises.

• The approach scales differently depending on procurement complexity. A $50,000 goods purchase probably doesn't need a full integrated team, but a multi-year IT services contract absolutely does.

Related Terms

Agile procurement, Commodity management, Standing offers

Sources

• Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates - Modernizing Federal Procurement for Small and Medium Enterprises (2018)

• Office of the Procurement Ombudsman - Procurement Practices Review: Chapter 5, Methods of Supply (2009-2010)

• Public Services and Procurement Canada - Supply Manual

The integrated approach takes more effort upfront but typically saves time and headaches during execution. If your procurement is complex enough to involve multiple stakeholders anyway, you might as well coordinate them properly from the start.