Case Study

Procurement Transformation – Building a Self-Organizing Tactical Procurement Team

To redesign the Tactical Procurement team into a self-organizing, result-driven and resilient unit with clear operational structures and strong relational dynamics.

Client

Flemish Public Employment Service

Situation

The Tactical Procurement team operates in a complex environment with multiple stakeholders, regulatory constraints and performance expectations.

Challenges included:

Need for clearer decision frameworks
Balancing autonomy with accountability
Strengthening ownership and peer-to-peer responsibility
Improving feedback culture
Managing tensions constructively
Aligning operational efficiency with relational trust

The transformation required working simultaneously on:

Operational systems (roles, decision rights, workflows, priorities)
Relational dynamics (trust, feedback, conflict handling, shared responsibility)

Assignment

Act as Project Manager and Facilitator to support the Tactical Procurement team in evolving toward a self-organizing team model.

The assignment focused on:

Redesigning operational team functioning
Clarifying decision-making autonomy within defined frameworks
Strengthening shared leadership
Improving collaboration within the team and across departments
Addressing both structural systems and relational dynamics (“above and below the waterline”)

The ambition was to use self-organization as a lever for growth, engagement and sustainable employability.

Challenge

Key Objectives

1 — Clear Frameworks & Autonomy

Define clear boundaries (“what”) and decision space (“how”)
Clarify roles and responsibilities
Improve transparency in priorities and resource allocation

2 — Operational Excellence

Strengthen result-driven collaboration
Clarify core processes and deliverables
Optimize workflow organization
Establish practical team agreements

3 — Shared Leadership

Shift from hierarchical reliance to distributed ownership
Normalize peer-to-peer dialogue
Strengthen adult-to-adult communication

4 — Feedback & Learning Culture

Introduce structural feedback loops
Encourage constructive conflict resolution
Embed continuous improvement practices

5 — Team Resilience & Employability

Strengthen self-organizing capacity
Enhance individual and collective growth
Increase engagement and adaptability

Approach

The transformation followed an integrated and participative methodology:

Workshop facilitation in short, focused work sessions
Combination of full-team sessions and smaller design groups
Individual exploratory conversations
Development of a jointly defined roadmap

Step-by-step work on five core systems of shared leadership:

Clear frameworks & decision space
Transparent resource flow
Open information flow
Structural feedback loops
Constructive handling of tensions

Each session resulted in concrete deliverables and team agreements, anchored through structured follow-up. The framework remained stable. The team determined the pace and sequencing.

Results, delivered

Clearer decision-making autonomy within defined boundaries
Improved transparency in roles and priorities
Strengthened peer-to-peer accountability
More constructive dialogue around tensions
Concrete team agreements embedded in daily practice
Increased ownership and engagement
Stronger alignment between operational performance and team cohesion

The team evolved from primarily operational coordination toward conscious self-organization.

Our involvement

In this assignment, I:

Designed and structured the transformation roadmap
Facilitated workshops and team sessions
Guided the team in defining its own governance principles
Strengthened relational dynamics and psychological safety
Balanced pragmatism with systemic change
Ensured measurable, concrete outcomes per work session
Supported sustainable embedding of self-organizing practices

The role combined organizational design, leadership facilitation and behavioral transformation.

Total Mandays

(Project- & Change Management)

Get In Touch

kris@factter.be