Meet Alix, Government COO
Alix plays a critical role in managing their department’s overall operations and strategic initiatives and is always looking for approaches to improve their efficiency, effectiveness, compliance, and visibility.
Their work includes:
- Strategic vision: Setting departmental goals and outlining what needs to happen to achieve them
- Ongoing management of department progress (reporting and insights)
- Transparency and accountability in support of their teams
9:00 am
Tracking Every Dollar
To start the day, Alix takes a look at their inbox to triage the most critical issues facing their agency. As Chief Operations Officer, they’re constantly looking for ways to ensure that their agency is running efficiently and effectively and that their teams have what they need to deliver excellent services. Alix logs in to City Innovate to review a 360-degree dashboard to get visibility into all their agency’s purchasing and contracts – in one place.
They are immediately up to speed on how many projects are on track, where they may be stuck, and with full transparency into project
status they can quickly and easily identify and remove any blockers. Legal reviews seem to be taking longer than usual, and using these insights Alix sets up a meeting with the legal team to find out how they can work together to address the delays.
These dashboards give Alix unprecedented access to information that was previously hidden across their teams’ inboxes and within
documents. Now they can access the insights that are important to them, on-demand.
9:30 am
Operating in Full Compliance
Staying in compliance with the latest policy, legislation, and regulations is extremely important to Alix. They have been
tracking new procurement scoring guidelines that are going into effect later this year and the final approved language arrived in their inbox this morning. Using the City Innovate platform, Alix is able to confirm this critical policy update – to increase contract participation among minority-, women-, and veteran-owned businesses – is incorporated into all active and future solicitations.
As a member of the executive team, Alix sits on a cross-agency committee and regularly reports on their agency’s progress towards
reaching their goals. Using City Innovate Alix is able to pull data on current participation rates.
Their agency’s positive results are supported by their City Innovate vendor engagement and online bidding tools – making it easy for
small businesses to maintain a profile with their agency and bid on qualified opportunities.
10:00 am
Delivering Budget Oversight
To prepare for an upcoming meeting, Alix reviews budget proposals across their agency, down to the program level, in easy-to-access
dashboards. While the agency’s budget is set annually, Alix is always monitoring for any off-cycle changes, and when needed, reviews
proposals for budget modifications.
There is a new initiative within their agency that will require additional resources. Alix sees that the program team has prepared a
proposal, it’s been approved by the program managers, their agency’s budget team, and is now ready for their signature.
They click into the request, easily navigate to the relevant proposal documents, and approve the request with an electronic signature – sending it on for final preparation to the state budget team.
11:30 am
Automated Workflows Ready for Action
While attending the meeting with several program directors, Alix and the teams come to the conclusion that an emergency procurement
will likely need to take place. During the meeting Alix is presented with relevant supporting materials on the City Innovate platform.
With this context, Alix is prepared to help marshall the project through completion.
As a reviewer and approver of requests for larger purchases, Alix relies on the City Innovate platform’s automated workflow that routes purchases over a certain threshold directly to their desk.
Once approved, Alix knows they will continue to have visibility into the progress of the project, allowing them to make sure the work is going smoothly, leave and respond to comments in-line, and follow up efficiently with department staff.
12:00 pm
Connecting Government Needs and Tech Advancements
It’s almost lunch time, and Alix takes a few minutes to scan through emails, government news from colleagues, and a few of their favorite governing newsletters and trade publications.
Alix has been seeing more stories about Generative AI and considers what role it might play in the future of government efficiency and
compliance – recommending the right language – sharpening written statements of work and budget proposals alike – leading to even
more effective operations.
1:00 pm
Recruiting and Retaining Top Talent
Alix meets with an HR team leader and discusses two senior procurement manager roles that will become vacant when two long-serving employees retire in the upcoming quarter. They discuss hiring strategies and how best to recruit and retain talent. With an
increasingly mobile workforce, Alix knows that the State competes for high-quality talent to staff effective teams.
Having modern, document process automation systems in place makes a difference to remove archaic processes, ensure that new
employees are able to be trained faster, and ultimately retain the best employees who are in turn supported by a system that helps them be more efficient and effective.
2:30 pm
Driving Down Negative Audit Findings
Alix receives the latest compliance audit results in their inbox from the purchasing control agency. Negative audit findings are down significantly in recent months.
This removes burdensome meetings from Alix’s calendar, freeing up their day to catch up on other critical work. When things do seem
amiss, Alix is able to get detailed audit logs from their team so they can identify the root cause of any issue and make workflow or
document updates that immediately resolve those issues in the future.
3:30 pm
Proactive Monitoring for Peace of Mind
While reading a briefing memo, Alix becomes focused on deliverables for one of the agency’s newest major projects. There’s nothing to
suggest that there are any problems at the moment, but because it’s a large contract and a new vendor relationship, Alix wants visibility into the contract’s performance.
Before tracking down their agency contract managers for status updates, Alix checks the City Innovate platform to explore contract
performance dashboards. Once they’ve navigated to the associated contract, Alix is able to review detailed deliverables associated with the large contract, and gets visibility into the standardized delivery reports provided by their selected vendor; giving them peace of mind.
5:00 pm
Exemplar of Effective Governing
Alex jots down a few notes before leaving the office to attend an evening event with the agency’s secretary, several members of the
executive’s cabinet, legislators, and invited stakeholders. As they prepare to head out, they feel confident in how the agency will be
perceived by the other event attendees this evening.