DHS seeks knowledge management system for procurement lab
The Department of Homeland Security is in search of a knowledge management platform to help coordinate workload and data management of its Procurement Innovation Lab (PIL), with the potential to expand governmentwide.
DHS hopes to find a “single, scalable” solution that PIL leads and the acquisition teams that participate in the program can use to “manage workload in a consistent manner in order to make it easy to quickly find other PIL projects and documents while also allowing for comprehensive data analysis and the ability to run visually engaging reports on that data.”
DHS Chief Procurement Officer Soraya Correa created the lab several years ago to give acquisition teams “a safe space to test new ideas, share lessons learned, and promote best practices.” The program has coaches whose job it is to lead acquisition teams through testing procurement flexibilities and trying new things. Correa spoke with FedScoop last summer on the Let’s Talk About IT podcast about the PIL and the other efforts she’s leading at DHS.
Throughout a new request for information document, DHS emphasizes the possibility that the ideal knowledge management solution would be cloud-based to support the remote-nature of PIL “coaches” working in the field with procurement teams across DHS and allow for the potential to scale it to other agencies across government.
A knowledge management system could also help test the PIL’s processes, allow users to share data, documents and other learnings, and improve micro-credentialing and metrics within the program, the RFI says.
In fiscal 2020, the PIL is coaching more than 50 procurement teams across the department and at other agencies, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of the Interior, National Science Foundation and the FBI, according to data from January. The lab hopes to help teams award 24 innovation procurements across nine organizations by the close of the fiscal year.
DHS is taking responses to the RFI through May 9.
