Acquisition Initiation (ISPL) - Draft Acquisition Goal

Draft Acquisition Goal

The draft acquisition goal is the description of the global goal that is to be achieved by starting procurement. It is inspired by the business needs or business strategy. It is similar, though simpler, to the concept of the project brief in PRINCE2. It is the first draft of the acquisition goal, containing at least a (short) problem definition and a (short) goal definition. The draft acquisition goal is meant to give the main reasons and the main goals to those people who will have to make the decision to actually start of the acquisition or not. It may thus also encapsulate items like a cost-benefit analysis, stakes & stakeholders and other items that will be further refined during the actual Acquisition Initiation.

It is, in this sense, not an activity of the acquisition initiation process, but it is the input for starting the process.

The problem definition is a statement about the problem that could be resolved by starting the acquisition process.

E.g.: The production process is becoming increasingly inefficient, in part because of aged software

The goal definition is a statement about the goal that will have to be reached when the acquisition is executed:

E.g.: The production process will see a 20% increase in both cost and time efficiency, when the software that is used in the process is updated

The draft acquisition goal can be made as short or as long as is needed by the organization, as long as it serves to be a good basis to make the initial decision to start of an acquisition process.