Starting from scratch
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- Published on Wednesday, September 16, 2015
By Vern May
Minnedosa & Area Community Development Corporation
Separating fact from fiction is key to the development of any organization. Whenever you rely on the expertise of others to achieve your mission, you want to ensure you’re dealing with people who know what they’re talking about. Sometimes the easiest measure is to start from scratch.
Anyone who has put a contract out to tender knows how tedious that process can be. No matter how specific you are in your request for proposals, you often find yourself buried in documents which look impressive at a glance, but once you dig in, you find there’s little of substance to support hiring that vendor.
Once you’ve excluded those who apparently didn’t do their homework or failed to read your guidelines, you narrow it down to the final two or three candidates. With potentially millions of dollars on the line, you can’t afford to get it wrong. And even when the choice might seem clear to you, you also want to make sure your stakeholders can see what you see as well. So, you take it back to basics.
In the interview room, my favourite question to ask of any vendor was this: “Assuming we’re starting from scratch on a new project with nothing in place, explain to me what you would introduce and explain your decision-making process and implementation priorities.” By asking this question, we eliminate any excuses about what is already in place or their effort to address the question based on their knowledge of what we already do. Instead, we get an unbiased raw look at the actual expertise and understanding of that provider about what we’re dealing with. It separates the contenders from the pretenders very quickly.
I’ve seen presenters woo a selection committee with their clear understanding of client needs with their response to this question. I’ve also watched as vendors would crumble under the scrutiny and clearly demonstrate why they submitted the lowest bid in hopes of securing a job beyond their scope. They simply didn’t have a handle on the requirements.
We can use this model ourselves in community development. Forget for a moment about what’s already in place or what has been proposed or tried previously. Starting with a blank slate, identify as a community where you want to start, what priorities exist and a proposal to phase in development over time.Once you’ve gone through that exercise, cross off the pieces which may be in place, or in progress, to identify some areas for development and plan for that growth in your budget. You may find this helps to funnel ideas more effectively or to create some structure your ratepayers can get behind, and generate a wave of public support for your strategy.
It may seem more labour-intensive than most strategies you can implement, but it’s an effective and transparent method that should better encourage board support in the short term, allowing you to make great strides in the long term.
If you were starting from scratch with a blank slate, what would you do? Let’s continue the conversation and explore the possibilities that exist; email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or phone 204-867-3885. The best things around that I have ever seen, came from small towns and big dreams.
