March is Procurement Month and OPBA is excited to present a series of weekly educational sessions. These sessions are free for OPBA members and designed to enhance the knowledge and skills of procurement professionals.
Here’s a lineup of the sessions and their details:
Week 1: Basics and Beyond: Exploring Evaluation Methodologies and Unique RFPs strategies
March 4, 2025
1:00 PM – 3:00 PM
Virtual Event
Registration closes on Feb 28, 2025
March is Procurement Month! Join us for OPBA’s weekly educational series celebrating Procurement Month! This is the first session in our 4-part series.
Victor Leamer, Stéphanie Dion, and Mike Thornton—known as the #RFPDreamTeam—will lead an engaging, practical session on evaluation methodologies and unique types of RFPs. Drawing from real-life examples, they’ll share success stories, highlight common pitfalls to avoid, and explore various approaches to improve your procurement outcomes. Whether you’re new to public procurement or a seasoned professional, this session, based on NIGP’s RFP Best Practice, will deliver valuable insights you can put into action.
Week 2: Transforming Government Procurement: Leveraging Category Management and Group Purchasing for Smarter Buying
March 11, 2025
10:00 AM – 11:00 AM ET
Virtual Event
Registration closes on March 9, 2025
March is Procurement Month! Join us for OPBA’s weekly educational series celebrating Procurement Month! This is the second session in our 4-part series.
Discover an exciting and transformative approach to public procurement: Category Management and Group Purchasing. This strategy is revolutionizing how goods and services are acquired, offering streamlined, efficient, and cost-effective solutions for public sector organizations. Learn how category management and group purchasing organizations are driving smarter purchasing decisions and delivering greater value for money. Whether you’re new to these strategies or looking to enhance your current approach, you’ll gain practical insights and actionable takeaways to implement immediately.
Presenter: Sandra Lisi, Vice President Supplier Engagement, Kinetic GPO
Week 3: Beyond the Basics: Advanced Strategies for Verifying References
March 18, 2025
10:00 AM – 11:00 AM
Virtual Event
Registration closes on March 14, 2025
March is Procurement Month! Join us for OPBA’s weekly educational series celebrating Procurement Month! This is the third session in our 4-part series.
Reference checks can be a valuable tool in procurement—but they also come with challenges. This session explores advanced strategies for verifying vendor references, balancing transparency with privacy considerations, and ensuring a fair and effective evaluation process.
Presenter: Michael Burjaw, Vendor Relations Specialist at the City of Hamilton
Week 4: Critical Thinking – A Critical Skill
March 26, 2025
1:00 PM – 2:30 PM
Virtual Event
Registration closes on March 24, 2025
March is Procurement Month! Join us for OPBA’s weekly educational series celebrating Procurement Month! This is the last session in our 4-part series.
We’ve been told that our ability to think is what separates us from the animals. “I think, therefore I am,” proclaimed Rene’ Descartes in the 17th century. Situations, problems and opportunities confront us on a daily basis. How we handle them and move on is fundamental to long-term success in any endeavor. Simply reacting is not a sound strategy. We each have our own experiences and points of view from which we make assumptions. To that we add facts, opinions and observations to try and arrive at a course of action. We must analyze each situation on its own merits and develop a plan to attack it. This requires the skill set of critical thinking, which examines assumptions, evaluates evidence and assesses conclusions. This workshop will examine many of the facets of critical thinking and provide some useful tools for its proper application.
Presenter: David Nash
David was a certified instructor for NIGP for over 14 years, teaching over 100 courses in various disciplines. From 2010 to 2013 he served on the Evaluation Committee for the National Procurement Institute’s Achievement of Excellence in Procurement Award. Since creating the online “Question of the Day” in 2007, he has helped thousands of procurement professionals prepare for their CPPB, CPPO and NIGP-CPP exams.