## A Day in the Life **Quote:** "In public procurement, every dollar spent is a promise kept to the taxpayer. My mission is to ensure that whether we are housing a championship high school team or a hundred disaster relief volunteers, we provide safety and dignity without ever exceeding the strict fiscal boundaries set by our per diems." **A Day in the Life:** Lisa begins her morning by reviewing a stack of travel requests against the latest federal and state per diem rates. She spends a significant portion of her day on the phone with hotel sales managers, negotiating rates that include breakfast and parking to keep total costs within budget. Between meetings with department heads, she meticulously enters data into the district’s legacy ERP system and cross-references compliance documentation to ensure every booking is audit-ready. ## Demographics - **Full Name:** Lisa Jensen - **Age:** 38 - **Gender:** Female - **Race or ethnic background:** Caucasian - **Location:** A small, cluttered office inside a municipal building or school district headquarters. - **Education:** Bachelor’s Degree in Public Administration, Business Management, or a related field; often holds a Certified Public Procurement Officer (CPPO) designation. - **Stature:** Practical clothing, lanyard with ID badge, often seen sorting through stacks of compliance documents. - **Clothing:** Business casual attire—typically slacks, a modest blouse, and comfortable flats for walking between municipal departments. - **Hobbies/Interests:** Lisa enjoys community gardening and volunteering for the local historical society. ## Professional Background - **Archetype:** The Community Pillar - **Job Title:** Public Sector Procurement Officer - **Industry:** Government Administration / Education Management - **Company Name:** Jefferson County School District or City Procurement Office - **Company Size:** Large - **Role & Responsibilities:** Lisa manages the end-to-end acquisition of travel services and supplies for public employees and affiliates. Her daily tasks include vetting vendors for regulatory compliance, negotiating bulk lodging contracts for large groups, managing purchase orders, and ensuring all expenditures align with strict government-approved per diem limits and transparency laws. ## Collaboration and Influence - **Collaborators:** School Superintendents, Athletic Directors, Emergency Management Coordinators, Finance Directors, Hotel Sales Managers, State Auditors. - **Influence:** Her decisions are heavily influenced by the Board of Trustees and State Audit Bureaus, who demand fiscal transparency and adherence to budget constraints. - **Preferred Communication Channels:** Formal email for documentation, desk phone for negotiations, and physical memos for internal approvals. ## Work Environment **Environment:** Lisa works in a traditional, high-density office environment characterized by fluorescent lighting and rows of filing cabinets. While she spends most of her time sitting at a desk with dual monitors, she frequently stands to retrieve physical files or walks to the mailroom and other departments to hand-deliver urgent contracts for signature. The atmosphere is professional but often high-pressure due to strict deadlines and public scrutiny. **Environment keywords:** Fluorescent, filing cabinets, cubicle, paper-heavy, municipal, functional, busy, organized, bureaucratic, traditional. ## Goals, Priorities, & Motivations **Primary Goals:** - Secure high-quality lodging for large groups that never exceeds the GSA per diem rate. - Ensure 100% compliance with state and federal procurement regulations to avoid audit findings. - Streamline the booking process for sports teams and disaster volunteers to ensure timely arrivals. - Maintain a transparent paper trail for every taxpayer dollar spent on travel and purchasing. **Priorities:** - Verifying that selected hotels accept government tax-exempt certificates. - Matching group sizes with available room blocks within a specific geographic radius. - Reconciling invoices against approved purchase orders before the end of the fiscal cycle. - Providing clear itineraries and support contacts for traveling teams and volunteers. **Motivations:** - A strong sense of civic duty and a desire to be a good steward of public funds. - The professional satisfaction of passing an audit with zero discrepancies. - Ensuring the safety and comfort of students and volunteers representing the community. - Achieving organizational efficiency that allows more funds to be directed toward frontline services. ## Challenges & Pain Points **Individual Challenges:** - Managing the high stress of finding last-minute lodging during peak seasons or emergencies. - The manual burden of cross-referencing multiple spreadsheets to track spending. - Difficulty negotiating with vendors who are unwilling to lower rates to meet per diems. - Balancing the needs of travelers who want amenities with the restrictions of the budget. **Organizational & Technical Challenges:** - Working with outdated legacy software that does not integrate with modern booking platforms. - Navigating complex, multi-layered approval workflows that slow down the procurement process. - Lack of real-time visibility into total spend across different departments. - Strict regulatory changes that require frequent updates to internal procurement policies. ## Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) **Tasks & Activities:** - Researching and vetting hotels that meet safety and proximity requirements. - Drafting and issuing Requests for Proposals (RFPs) for large-scale lodging needs. - Reviewing and approving expense reports and reimbursement requests. - Coordinating logistics for emergency housing during local disasters. **Obstacles & Barriers:** - Hotels that have "hidden fees" (resort fees, parking) that push the cost over per diem. - Slow response times from vendors during urgent disaster relief scenarios. - Inconsistent data formats from different departments making consolidation difficult. - Limited staff support, leading to a backlog of administrative paperwork. ## Behavioral Insights **Decision-Making Process:** Lisa makes decisions based on a "compliance-first" framework, where the legality and budget adherence of a choice outweigh convenience or brand loyalty. She often consults a checklist of regulatory requirements before even considering the qualitative aspects of a service. Her process is slow and deliberate, as she must anticipate how an auditor would view the decision six months down the line. **Buying Behavior:** She is highly price-sensitive and looks for "all-inclusive" government packages that simplify billing. Lisa prefers vendors who have a proven track record with other public institutions and who offer "net-30" payment terms rather than requiring credit card payments upfront. She values reliability and clear documentation over flashy features or modern aesthetics. ## Tools & Preferences **Current Solutions:** - **Microsoft Excel:** Used for tracking budgets, per diem rates, and vendor lists. - **Legacy ERP System:** Used for generating purchase orders and official financial recording. - **GSA Per Diem Look-up Tool:** Used daily to verify maximum allowable lodging rates by zip code. - **Google Maps:** Used to calculate proximity between lodging and event venues or disaster sites. **Preferred Solutions:** - **Automated Per Diem Integration:** A tool that automatically flags any booking that exceeds the current GSA rate for that specific date and location. - **Centralized Group Booking Portal:** A platform that allows her to send one request to multiple hotels and receive bids in a standardized format. - **Digital Compliance Vault:** A feature that automatically attaches tax-exempt forms and contracts to every transaction for easy audit retrieval. - **Real-Time Budget Dashboard:** A visual interface that shows remaining funds for the fiscal year across different travel categories.