Queensland Department of Transport & Main Roads
Supporting Queensland’s Department of Transport and Main Roads to make procurement a strategic tool that delivers more value for taxpayers
In 2023, I started working with the Chief Procurement Office for Queensland’s Department of Transport and Main Roads on their procurement operating model.
TMR’s goal was to evolve procurement to be a strategic asset. Historically, procurement had been an administrative function and often seen as a bureaucratic barrier, however with a budget of over $10 billion per annum, a more strategic approach promised significant efficiencies and better outcomes. TMR asked me to explore ways to streamline their operating model to become a lever to drive value rather than a box ticking exercise.
Deanne Hawkwood is Chief Procurement Officer for TMR. She explains: “The Department of Transport and Main Roads is the largest buying agency in Queensland government. We procure many of the services we deliver to the community. We have an internal team who manage road repairs. Everything else is delivered by contractors, including transport services and infrastructure. Even the pilots who guide ships into port are contractors.”
$10B+
Annual procurement spend
$42B+
4-year infrastructure pipeline
300
Procurement delegates statewide
10,000+
TMR people across Queensland
Realising the potential for procurement improvement
In early 2020, Deanne joined TMR’s Infrastructure Management and Delivery (IMD) Division. IMD’s role is to operate, maintain, build, and optimise Queensland’s transport infrastructure network. To give you a feel for the scope of that work, their infrastructure project budget for the next four years is more than $42 billion.
Deanne was working on two transformative infrastructure initiatives, both related to procurement. The first was introducing a challenging policy on major infrastructure projects. The second was to improve collaboration through procurement and delivery for TMR’s infrastructure project by bringing industry together with TMR to address the barriers and ways of working. Insights from this working group led to a program of improvements.
This project gave Deanne a vision for what procurement could be. She explains: “After making successful procurement improvements in infrastructure, I knew our operating model could work better for our infrastructure team and the rest of the procurement function. I wanted to respect those things I’d learned working in the infrastructure side of the business and build on the momentum gathering there.”
As a result, when Deanne returned to her role as head of procurement for TMR in 2023, she began to review the way procurement operates across the whole organisation.
Shifting procurement from admin to a strategic asset
TMR’s Chief Procurement Office sits in their Enabling Solutions Group. Historically, procurement operated in a way quite removed from the day-to-day business of the organisation. TMR recognised this as a weakness, and in 2016, they evolved procurement from a fully centralised model to a hybrid model combining centralised functions with local delivery. Deanne says: “We devolved procurement decision making to the regions because our local teams understand what they need and what the market has available best. We have about 300 procurement delegates across the state and a small central team who support those buyers with tools and frameworks to help them procure the goods and services they need.”
This change took procurement closer to the business action. But the challenge remained that not everyone understood the potential of procurement to help project leaders make strategic decisions that would deliver more value and better outcomes.
“We need to improve our market engagement so we can be better informed, because that’s how we move faster. We want to streamline and digitise our processes to make them more efficient.
We're custodians of taxpayer money, so ultimately, we want to deliver on time, on budget, with better return on investment, and to do that we need to grow TMR’s procurement capability.”
— Max Broadhurst, Deputy Chief Procurement Officer
A decade in motion
How TMR’s procurement function evolved from a centralised back-office into an organisation-wide strategic review.
Phase 1: 2016
Hybrid model adopted
Procurement evolves from fully centralised to a hybrid model — central team + ~300 delegates devolved into the regions, closer to the work.
Phase 2: 2020
Infrastructure pilot
Deanne joins IMD. Two procurement-led initiatives prove the function can move from gatekeeper to enabler on major infrastructure.
Phase 3: 2023
Whole-of-TMR review
Back as Chief Procurement Officer, Deanne commissions a review of the operating model across the entire department.
Phase 4: 2024
Implementation plan
Re-engaged for phase two: a detailed plan covering team structure, capability, resourcing, governance and quick wins.
Phase 5: 2025
Executive backing
Recommendations endorsed by senior leadership. Multi-year, gradual rollout begins.
The importance of stakeholder engagement
When I started working with TMR, the first phase of the project was a review of their current procurement operating model. Max and I worked together gathering data and engaging with a wide range of stakeholders through workshops.
Deanne knew it was vital to include the TMR team in developing the new procurement operating model, so they felt joint ownership. Her advice to any organisation undergoing a similar operating model review is: “Develop your new model in partnership with your organisation. Key stakeholders can help you identify the pain points and including them in the process helps them understand why you’re changing the way you work.”
Max adds: “It’s very important that change is business-led. Technical experts don't like to be told what to do. Engagement is critical. Go on a journey of discovery as a group. Some of our subject matter experts thought procurement couldn’t tell them anything they didn’t already know. But once they realised we weren’t there to tell them how to do their job, and to open their eyes to the benefits of alternative ways of doing things, it triggered their curiosity.”
This review ended up being a complex project. We spoke to 50+ stakeholders and analysed their input. Drawing insights from stakeholder engagement on this scale is hard work.
Deanne says: “Kristine's ability to manage those workshops was phenomenal. There's an artform to facilitating, and she managed to get the right people in the room, and structure and facilitate the workshops to produce useful results within challenging time frames. When I think about the number of sessions she did with various stakeholders, it was impressive. As she conducted this research, she kept me and my team briefed on progress with weekly progress reports, and she was very good at being flexible to accommodate our input.”
This review showed that TMR’s procurement operating model wasn't broken but needed modernising and identified a number of things that could be improved.
Infrastructure as a microcosm of TMR’s wider procurement needs
In 2024, TMR re-engaged me to help them develop a detailed implementation plan. By that stage, Max had succeeded Deanne leading the infrastructure procurement improvement program, so I was also tasked with supporting him to develop the new procurement model for TMR’s infrastructure team.
This infrastructure procurement improvement program became a microcosm of the wider procurement operating model review. Max found a root cause of TMR’s infrastructure challenges was they weren’t making informed enough decisions at the procurement stage. He explains: “We have to make well-informed procurement decisions. A poor decision risks not delivering on expectations or ending up spending more to fix mistakes.”
Max realised that market engagement wasn’t happening early enough to understand supplier capability and capacity. He says: “One of our challenges with cost and time impacts were caused by heading into procurement too late. We needed to be more collaborative with the infrastructure construction industry because they’re the experts. We want the best in the industry to tell us how to solve our challenges and achieve our goals, so, we need a procurement operating model that can support better interaction with industry stakeholders.”
Now TMR’s infrastructure team are tackling projects with the industry as a shared vision, with shared responsibility, risks, and rewards. Max says: “As a result, we’re more informed, and we’re seeing better delivery results. We’re also seeing a refinement in maturity where procurement has a seat at the top table. Executives used to see procurement as a means to an end. They understand and value the procurement proposition more clearly now.”
Max’s other insight from his time in infrastructure was the realisation that infrastructure moves faster than traditional procurement. He says: “Procurement has to be more agile to work as a business enabler. If we’re not quick enough to react to business needs, we become irrelevant. To work hand in glove with infrastructure, we have to run alongside.”
Infrastructure: faster moving than traditional procurement.
Moving faster means improving our market engagement.
You can’t redesign an operating model from your ivory tower
A critical element in this project was TMR’s decision to co-design a procurement solution with a wide range of stakeholders. My approach is always to start small and build with your people. You need a strategic approach – but don’t be tempted to plan for too long. At some point, you must take a leap of faith, try something, learn from it, and build on that base.
Max agrees, saying: “You can't do an operating model redesign by moving chess pieces sitting in an ivory tower. You have to work hand-in-glove with your organisation. If we’d tried to inflict a new way of working on the infrastructure division, people would have kicked back saying: ‘This is too theoretical, it doesn't work for us.’ We’re trying to enable a business-led operational model change. If the changes we propose don't work for the business, then we've done the business a big disservice and wasted everyone’s time.”
Deanne and Max both view their time in infrastructure seeing how the procurement function operates from a business lens as incredibly invaluable. They returned to the Chief Procurement Office with important insights, experience, and more credibility with the TMR team.
The success of this new methodology has given the Chief Procurement Office license for wider operational change. Deanne says: “Procurement has always had a bit of a problem getting recognition for the value we create. Recognition comes from results, so we were able to leverage the credibility from the work we’ve done with infrastructure procurement to get buy in to tackle the procurement operating model for the whole organisation.”
Stay aware of changing organisational goals
Alignment to operational goals is critical for any organisational change project. Operational goals can change over time, particularly in government departments. So, you must not lose sight of the context you’re operating in, especially on a long-term project.
Deanne had full support from senior leaders at the start of this project, however in late 2024 the Queensland government changed and TMR’s priorities shifted in response. The procurement review’s original intention was to evolve procurement to help TMR deliver more value to Queensland residents, and assess the approach and capability needed for this success. As the political climate shifted, efficiency and potential for cost savings emerged as stronger drivers and we had to pivot rapidly to address this.
When Max was seconded to IMD Division in late 2023, Karen Rose took over his role as Deputy Chief Procurement Officer. Karen says: “One of my biggest learnings from the procurement review was the need for constant engagement with sponsors and stakeholders. Make sure you’re aware of external factors that affect your project, especially if you’re undertaking an organisational review in a time of rapid change, such as a new government. Keep on top of those external political factors and make sure you’re agile enough to address shifting priorities. We weren't as quick to recognise the impact the shifting political climate was having on our department as we should have been, although we managed to pivot.”
Self-initiated projects require even more engagement and support
Senior leadership buy-in becomes doubly important if a change project is self-initiated, as was the case with this review. Deanne spearheaded this project after her secondment to infrastructure opened her eyes to the potential for procurement improvement.
Proactively pursuing organisational improvement is a hallmark of great leaders and it brings its own challenges if you’re driving a project that requires buy-in from above. Deanne says: “Make sure you’ve the executive authority to address your operating model. It was very important for us to have that executive support and for our senior leadership team to recognise the importance of the procurement function.”
If you’re running a project and you don’t have full budget authority, get to the heart of what you need from key decision makers. What do you need from senior leaders in terms of support? And what do they need from you to give you their backing to proceed?
Karen adds: “It’s always a challenge making sure your senior leaders recognise the benefits of your project and support your outcomes, particularly when you’re trying to drive organisational change. Senior leaders have their own priorities, so, when you kick off a proactive project, you need a strong ability to influence key stakeholders and make sure they recognise the problem you’re trying to address.”
Sometimes a gradual transition trumps dramatic change
Recommendations from my second phase of work with TMR included procurement’s future focus areas, the procurement team structure, as well as the capability, resourcing, and governance required for success. We also explored quick wins, long-term goals, project phases, and time frames. These recommendations got senior leadership backing in early 2025 and will now be rolled out gradually, over a period of several years.
In an organisation as large as TMR, with 6000 people statewide, a system overhaul can take time, especially within an environment that constantly evolves to meet external changes and impacts on an agency’s priorities. Karen says: “Change can be challenging within the public sector, particularly when you’re dealing with unknowns. Digitisation for procurement hasn't been fully planned and there’s a lack of procurement capability in some key areas. We toyed with the idea of a big bang change project. But we had to design our future state model with placeholders around digital and human resources, so we landed on a more transitional approach.”
Max adds: “Make a conscious decision to go hard or work incrementally. You don't want to start, then six months in, realise you should have been more conservative. Equally, be brutally realistic about your appetite for change. There are highs and lows in any transformation. You'll have a moment on the rollercoaster where someone says: ‘Why are we doing this again?’ That’s when you need to be clear on the value change brings”
Change consultants must honour context and care about results
It’s essential to honour context when it comes to organisational change. Forcing organisations into a generic operational model, regardless of how celebrated that model may be, is a recipe for failure because it doesn’t consider the nuance of your situation. This project felt personal for me because I’ve worked with TMR for many years. I know how hard they work and how much they care about Queensland, so the prospect of making a difference matters.
Deanne explains. “I needed someone who understands our context. Kristine has a deep knowledge of the challenges we face. She’s also very good at unpacking the dynamics of an organisation, understanding them, then putting them back together in a way that works better.” Max adds: “Public sector organisations can be oil tankers when it comes to change. Kristine provided realistic hypotheses that had credibility, rather than suggesting things that would never work.”
Independent advisors bring a different perspective. Deanne knows how crucial that is, saying “Don't try to do a project like this by yourself. Get someone in like Kristine, who understands operational change, and adopt a partnership approach. Dedicate people in your team to walk alongside your consultant, collecting knowledge, gathering stories, and co-creating your new approach. Max adds: “Kristine’s independent view meant she was able to challenge our thinking, get under the skin of things and really probe ideas. She brought a richness of debate and discussion to the project that gave us a better outcome.”
My goal is to become an integral part of your team. Deanne says: “Kristine makes us feel like we’re in it together. She’s walking in our shoes, as invested in the outcome as we are. I knew she wouldn’t let us down, and I haven’t had that experience with consultants often.”
Karen adds: “Consultants often don't listen. It’s as if they already have a view before they start and they force their cookie cutter approach upon you. Kristine is different. I loved the way she engaged with us. She never imposed her ideas. She felt like a colleague. She has a really refreshing and valuable ability to understand our environment quickly and challenge our thinking, so we come up with answers together. She was brilliant to work with.”
Key insights
Six lessons drawn from the review.
Insight 01
Co-design, don’t inflict
Build the model with your people
In their words
“You can't do an operating model redesign by moving chess pieces sitting in an ivory tower. You have to work hand-in-glove with your organisation.”
— Max Broadhurst
In their words
“Keep on top of those external political factors and make sure you’re agile enough to address shifting priorities.”
— KAREN ROSE
Insight 04
Stay alert to shifting goals
Especially in government
In their words
“Technical experts don’t like to be told what to do… once they realised we weren’t there to tell them how to do their job, and to open their eyes to the benefits of alternative ways of doing things, it triggered their curiosity.”
— Max Broadhurst
Insight 02
Engagement is critical
Trigger curiosity, don’t direct
In their words
“Make sure you’ve the executive authority to address your operating model. It was very important for us to have that executive support and for our senior leadership team to recognise the importance of the procurement function.”
— DEANNE HAWKWOOD
Insight 05
Secure executive authority
Self-initiated change needs it most
In their words
“We were able to leverage the credibility from the work we’ve done with infrastructure procurement to get buy-in to tackle the procurement operating model for the whole organisation.”
— DEANNE HAWKWOOD
Insight 03
Recognition comes from results
Win small to win wide
Insight 06
Gradual can trump big-bang
Be realistic about appetite
In their words
“Make a conscious decision to go hard or work incrementally… Be brutally realistic about your appetite for change. There are highs and lows in any transformation.”
— Max Broadhurst
In their words
Standalone reflections from the TMR leadership team.
“Kristine's ability to manage workshops is phenomenal. She managed to get the right people in the room and facilitate a large number of workshops to produce useful results within challenging time frames. She kept me and my team briefed on progress with weekly progress reports, and she was very good at being flexible to accommodate our input.”
Deanne Hawkwood
Chief Procurement Officer, Queensland’s Department of Transport and Main Roads
“She’s walking in our shoes, as invested in the outcome as we are. I knew she wouldn’t let us down, and I haven’t had that experience with consultants often.”
Deanne Hawkwood
Chief Procurement Officer, Queensland’s Department of Transport and Main Roads
“Kristine provided realistic hypotheses that had credibility, rather than suggesting things that would never work.”
Max Broadhurst
Deputy Chief Procurement Officer, Queensland’s Department of Transport and Main Roads
“Consultants often don't listen. It’s as if they already have a view before they start and they force their cookie cutter approach upon you. Kristine is different. I loved the way she engaged with us. She never imposed her ideas. She felt like a colleague. She has a really refreshing and valuable ability to understand our environment quickly and challenge our thinking so we come up with answers together. She was brilliant to work with.”
Karen Rose
acting Deputy Chief Procurement Officer, Queensland’s Department of Transport and Main Roads
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