1. EU Public Procurement Learning Lab
Luxmbourg, February 17th 2005
Michele Guarino 30

2. The EU LAB Initiative 2004 – Methodology 1/3
Following IPSG interest in receiving feedback about the experience gained from the methodology used to manage the Initiative and its possible application in other International Initiatives
Methodology
Tools
General Results
Key Considerations
Working Programme 2005
Outcomes 2005
Today’s objective
Present the final report on EU Lab experience in terms of issues faced, methodology adopted and lessons learned
Good Morning………following the request of IPSG for feedback about the methodology adopted to manage the EU Lab Initiative and its possible application in other International Initiatives, we have been started thinking on it during the meeting held in Stockholm last October. Today will be presented the final report on the EU Lab experience in terms of issues faced, methodology adopted and lessons learned. 30

3. The EU LAB Initiative 2004 – Methodology 2/3
EU lab Initiative preliminary considerations:
Multi cultural context
34 Institutions and 26 countries have been involved
No specific budget has been assigned
Methodology
Tools
General Results
Key Considerations
Working Programme 2005
Outcomes 2005
EU lab Initiative challenges:
Related to each Country’s peculiarities
Related to the organization of the EU Lab activities
Deriving from the lack of specific resources
It is important make some preliminary considerations
The EU Lab has been working in a multi-cultural context, cooperating with different Procurement Agencies in 26 European Countries, each with peculiar organisational structures, different languages and different human and financial resources available.
Each country cooperates bringing its own experience and specific competence in Public Procurement.
No budget was assigned to the Initiative, which implies that a light and not demanding methodology, in terms of resources, be adopted.
The Initiative’s challenges can be grouped into 3 types:
1) In terms of countries’ peculiarities, some problems derived from the involvement of many Institutions, furthermore each one being different from the other, in terms of organisational structures and complexities, specific procedures……….. and most of all different approaches to International projects and cooperation initiatives.
Involvement in an international initiative also required an extra effort in terms of human and financial resources, self- financed within the organization.
Last but not least, the presence of different languages hindered ostacolare (has represented an obstacle to) the day-by-day interactions, where the use of a common language (English) hasn’t been, in some cases, enough to facilitate the communication process.
2) Regarding organisational structure of the Initiative, the main requirement has been to define an easy and “light” structure, not demanding in terms of human and financial resources, one that enables easy and frequent interactions, and that does not subtract time from the ordinary working assignments.
3) The lack of specific financial resources has in some countries determined, sometimes, the impossibility to participate in EU Lab activities.
To overcome these challenges, we adopted a methodology that enables increased participation and cooperation among the Institutions involved.
Adopting a methodology enables increased participation and cooperation among Institutions involved 30

4. The EU LAB Initiative 2004 – Methodology 3/3
General Coordinator
Stimulate the participation of the Institutions involved
Guarantee implementation of EU Lab activities
Monitor EU Lab activities
Working Groups
“Small and medium enterprises”
“Technical issues”
“Auction Design and Competitive Issues”
Methodology
Tools
General Results
Key Considerations
Working Programme 2005
Outcomes 2005
Since launching the Initiative, has been apparent to name a General Coordinator to maximize interaction among Institutions
General Coordinator’s role is to:
Stimulate the participation of the Institutions involved;
Guarantee the implementation of EU Lab activities;
Monitor EU Lab activities.
In terms of:
Supporting the Institutions;
Creating, sharing and updating the EU Lab mailing list;
Creating and updating the EU Lab website;
Supporting the organization of periodical EU Lab meetings;
Writing and distributing meeting reports.
Working Groups
In order to maximize each Institution’s contribution, taking into account the lack of human and financial resources, and in compliance with the EU Lab objectives, specific topics within the field of public procurement were identified to stimulate the interest and participation of Institutions, this was then followed by the creation of a distinct working group, namely:
“Small and medium enterprises”;
“Technical issues”;
“Auction Design and Competitive Issues”.
The choice of the topics resulted from a “democratic” process in the first meeting, during which each Institution freely decided whether to join and which group/s to join in line with its interests.
A leading country was assigned to each working group, in order to coordinate activities.
Leading countries were selected by trough “spontaneous” nominations, and, where not available, we involved those Institutions that, according to internal structure could support the working group deployment activities with enough available human resources. 30

5. The EU LAB Initiative 2004 - Tools
Questionnaires
Methodology
Tools
General Results
Key Considerations
Working Programme 2005
Outcomes 2005
Glossary
Periodical Meetings
Mailing List of Participants
In order to collect and share information among participants the following tools were developed:
Leading Countries have elaborated Questionnaires in order to collect information about the participants’ experiences in the field of the selected topics.
Questions should provide:
a brief explanation to each question;
multiple-choice answers in order to facilitate the provision of a clear answer and the analysis of results;
the possibility to insert personal comments.
Questionnaires were submitted in sequence to avoid more than one questionnaire being and wasting respondent’s time and effort unnecessarily.
Despite the use of English as the main language, certain topics implied the use of technical words, so Leading Countries decided to define a common glossary in the submitted questionnaires. It became a reference vocabulary to enable a better comprehension among Institutions.
In order to facilitate the day-by-day activities and the interaction among participants periodical meetings were organized to update each Institution involved on the Initiative’s activities, and to share case studies.
To stimulate the direct interaction of participants, a mailing list has been created with details of each Institution involved (country, last and first name, organisation, role within the organisation, , telephone, mobile, fax), the aim of which is to involve directly even those Institutions that didn’t participate in the meetings. At present, more than 34 Institutions are in the mailing list of the EU Lab.
Moreover a web site has been created to collect all the information about the Lab activities, meeting reports, institutional presentations, etc… it represent a precious tool for those Institutions that didn’t participate to meetings.
Web site 30

6. The EU LAB Initiative 2004 - General Results
Methodology
Tools
General Results
Key Considerations
Working Programme 2005
Outcomes 2005
Respect of the planned timetable
Agreement on the final outcome
Creation of a permanent network
Thanks to the methodology adopted some immediate results have been achieved:
1) The timetable planned during the first meeting was respected;
2) The working group agreed on the final outcome of the Initiative: 3 reports, one for each working group, aimed at presenting the results of questionnaires.
3) The EU Lab Initiative has enabled the creation of a permanent network, that, besides sharing information and best practices among involved Institutions, has triggered a continuous and spontaneous knowledge-sharing process. 30

7. The EU LAB Initiative 2004 – Key Considerations
Initiative has to be focused on sensitive issues
Equal consideration of all participants
Topics chosen should be specific and not too general
The participant has to be informed about resources
Number of participants involved
Different legal frameworks
Direct interaction and distance communication
Methodology
Tools
General Results
Key Considerations
Working Programme 2005
Outcomes 2005
From the EU Public Procurement Learning Lab’s experience it is possible to point out some aspects to take into account in developing similar international Initiatives.
The success of an international initiative is mainly due to some key features:
1) the initiative has to be focused on sensitive issues so that it will attract as many participants as possible. To reach this objective it is very important that issues dealt with are confidential. In this context, in fact, participants will feel free to respond spontaneously and the comparability among the Institutions will reach a higher level;
2) Usually those European Institutions with a longer experience are inclined to describe their experience, it is essential to give the same consideration to all participants, in order to guarantee an equivalent interest in each experience. All the Institutions have to be considered on the same level and it is up to the general coordinator to guarantee this relevant feature. This enables the maximum result in terms of information and solution sharing.
3) The topics chosen in the initiative should be specific and not too general, in order to help the Institutions involved focus on the activities. At the same time the chosen topics should not be excessively technical, because Institutions don’t have enough time/resources to spend on detailed studies, and the objectives should be maintained at a high level.
4) At the beginning of the initiative the general coordinator must inform participants on the effort to be sustained in terms of required human and financial resources. Knowing that, should help participants to maintain the same level of involvement from the beginning to the end of the initiative.
5) The high number of participants involved has positive and negative effects too. From one side, it allows the initiative to obtain a wide and complete range of information about the issues treated. On the other hand, the general coordinator has to spend more resources in managing the initiative in order to: involve and coordinate participants; meet the deadlines; achieve the initiative’s objectives, etc..
6) Institutions involved in the international initiatives operate in different legal frameworks and this may negatively impact on the comparability of national experiences, mainly if participants are not able to change the legislation in their countries. Nevertheless, in the EU Lab experience, the different legal frameworks gave an added value because they permitted the comparison and the evaluation of different cases and solutions adopted on the topics chosen.
7) In order to guarantee a correct roll-out of the initiative it is important to forecast (schedule) periodical meetings that allow a direct interaction among participants, and to maintain constant distance communication in order to guarantee the continuity of works and the attention of those Institutions that don’t have the possibility to join the meetings. 30

8. The EU LAB Initiative – Working Programme 2005
The EU Lab participants agreed upon to continue the Initiative focusing the 2005 activities on three different stream of activities:
Deepening the study on SMEs on the Public Procurement field
Deepening the study on the methods that shall be used to enhance competitive behaviours in the procurement process (optimal number of lots, choice of reserve price, length of contracts, etc.)
Implementing a Case Study on a specific product (e.g. PCs, Faxes, etc.) aimed at analysing the methods used to enhance competition and improve the quality of goods/services, as well as the monitoring of the supplies
Participants agreed upon meeting four time per year: the next EU Lab meeting will be held in Paris on March 7th.
Methodology
Tools
General Results
Key Considerations
Working Programme 2005
Outcomes 2005
From the EU Public Procurement Learning Lab’s experience it is possible to point out some aspects to take into account in developing similar international Initiatives.
The success of an international initiative is mainly due to some key features:
1) the initiative has to be focused on sensitive issues so that it will attract as many participants as possible. To reach this objective it is very important that issues dealt with are confidential. In this context, in fact, participants will feel free to respond spontaneously and the comparability among the Institutions will reach a higher level;
2) Usually those European Institutions with a longer experience are inclined to describe their experience, it is essential to give the same consideration to all participants, in order to guarantee an equivalent interest in each experience. All the Institutions have to be considered on the same level and it is up to the general coordinator to guarantee this relevant feature. This enables the maximum result in terms of information and solution sharing.
3) The topics chosen in the initiative should be specific and not too general, in order to help the Institutions involved focus on the activities. At the same time the chosen topics should not be excessively technical, because Institutions don’t have enough time/resources to spend on detailed studies, and the objectives should be maintained at a high level.
4) At the beginning of the initiative the general coordinator must inform participants on the effort to be sustained in terms of required human and financial resources. Knowing that, should help participants to maintain the same level of involvement from the beginning to the end of the initiative.
5) The high number of participants involved has positive and negative effects too. From one side, it allows the initiative to obtain a wide and complete range of information about the issues treated. On the other hand, the general coordinator has to spend more resources in managing the initiative in order to: involve and coordinate participants; meet the deadlines; achieve the initiative’s objectives, etc..
6) Institutions involved in the international initiatives operate in different legal frameworks and this may negatively impact on the comparability of national experiences, mainly if participants are not able to change the legislation in their countries. Nevertheless, in the EU Lab experience, the different legal frameworks gave an added value because they permitted the comparison and the evaluation of different cases and solutions adopted on the topics chosen.
7) In order to guarantee a correct roll-out of the initiative it is important to forecast (schedule) periodical meetings that allow a direct interaction among participants, and to maintain constant distance communication in order to guarantee the continuity of works and the attention of those Institutions that don’t have the possibility to join the meetings. 30

9. The EU LAB Initiative – Outcomes 2005
Consolidating the EU LAB Network
Methodology
Tools
General Results
Key Considerations
Working Programme 2005
Outcomes 2005
Widening the number of participants
From the EU Public Procurement Learning Lab’s experience it is possible to point out some aspects to take into account in developing similar international Initiatives.
The success of an international initiative is mainly due to some key features:
1) the initiative has to be focused on sensitive issues so that it will attract as many participants as possible. To reach this objective it is very important that issues dealt with are confidential. In this context, in fact, participants will feel free to respond spontaneously and the comparability among the Institutions will reach a higher level;
2) Usually those European Institutions with a longer experience are inclined to describe their experience, it is essential to give the same consideration to all participants, in order to guarantee an equivalent interest in each experience. All the Institutions have to be considered on the same level and it is up to the general coordinator to guarantee this relevant feature. This enables the maximum result in terms of information and solution sharing.
3) The topics chosen in the initiative should be specific and not too general, in order to help the Institutions involved focus on the activities. At the same time the chosen topics should not be excessively technical, because Institutions don’t have enough time/resources to spend on detailed studies, and the objectives should be maintained at a high level.
4) At the beginning of the initiative the general coordinator must inform participants on the effort to be sustained in terms of required human and financial resources. Knowing that, should help participants to maintain the same level of involvement from the beginning to the end of the initiative.
5) The high number of participants involved has positive and negative effects too. From one side, it allows the initiative to obtain a wide and complete range of information about the issues treated. On the other hand, the general coordinator has to spend more resources in managing the initiative in order to: involve and coordinate participants; meet the deadlines; achieve the initiative’s objectives, etc..
6) Institutions involved in the international initiatives operate in different legal frameworks and this may negatively impact on the comparability of national experiences, mainly if participants are not able to change the legislation in their countries. Nevertheless, in the EU Lab experience, the different legal frameworks gave an added value because they permitted the comparison and the evaluation of different cases and solutions adopted on the topics chosen.
7) In order to guarantee a correct roll-out of the initiative it is important to forecast (schedule) periodical meetings that allow a direct interaction among participants, and to maintain constant distance communication in order to guarantee the continuity of works and the attention of those Institutions that don’t have the possibility to join the meetings.
3 benchmark reports on the issues faced
Identify the best practices on common problems
Identify innovative solutions or instruments 30