Leverage Playbook Insights at Your Institution
The Advising Technology Procurement & Planning Playbook includes a number of practical exercises that leaders and teams can use to help guide and structure critical activities along the path to preparing for a major student success technology initiative. This resource library has been organized according to each of the Playbook pillars, which in turn correspond to the typical chronological phases that teams typically experience across the procurement process. Leaders should feel free to select and download the activities most relevant to their particular institution’s context and ongoing initiatives.
Aligning Institutional Goals to Technology Needs
Institutions with the strongest technology-mediated advising ecosystems understand that their investment in advising technology is an investment in student success infrastructure. Use this tool to map student success goals, discrete priorities, and success metrics to the specific technology initiatives needed to achieve them.
Scoping Project Goals
Set up your technology initiative for success by starting with a clear understanding of the problems you are trying to solve and the goals you hope to achieve. A crisp problem and goals statement can serve as a critical anchor throughout the process, ensuring procurement teams stay clear-eyed amid a sea of products about what the institution truly needs.
Building A Procurement Team
Advising technology initiatives impact multiple departments, so which types of individuals should be on the core procurement team? Leverage this guide to assemble a strong, inclusive, and impactful team modeled after some of the most effective teams in the country. Or, use it to audit your current team to ensure that the most critical perspectives are included.
End User Interview Guide and Notes Sheet
Conversations with end users — those who will be using the new technology tool most often — can help to shape and distinguish feature need-to-haves and nice-to-haves while garnering support for the initiative overall. Use this tool to help guide and track feedback from discussions with advisors, students, and support staff.
Feature and Requirement Prioritization Guide
Which functionality is most needed to achieve and scale student success strategies? Should our institution buy something new, or is it possible to improve upon what we have? Use this guide to help assess which specific features are most critical to procure for the success of your technology initiative.
Vendor Q&A Cheat Sheet
Impactful Q&A sessions with vendors illuminate important information about product capabilities, implementation processes, and the total cost of product ownership over time. Use this cheat sheet to check the box on important questions to ask of your preferred vendors during product demonstrations and throughout the procurement process.
Evaluation Rubric Illustration and Template
Exemplary procurement teams compare and contrast different vendors and products while maintaining a focus on institutional priorities. This tool includes a sample evaluation rubric (including key categories and sample weighting) that can be used as a reference point for institution or system leaders and teams.
Post-Demonstration Discussion Guide
Product discussions can help to illuminate which products are most appealing for a variety of stakeholders. However, they also tend to surface areas that will require trade offs and compromise across units. This tool can help structure and guide these discussions to productively gather stakeholder feedback on products.
Vendor Data Strategy Audit Protocol
Before signing a contract, savvy procurement teams ask critical questions about vendor’s data access and configuration plans. Use this guide to explore whether your institution — and your preferred vendor — will be able to leverage key data critical to the success of the technology tool.