As part of a multi-year water resources planning study, the South Platte Decision Support System field programs collected high-quality aquifer property (K, Sy/S) data from Colorado's South Platte alluvial aquifer and Denver Basin bedrock aquifers.  The alluvial program was originally scoped for installation of 15 hollow stem auger wells to be used for single-well pumping tests and water level monitoring.  The bedrock well program was originally scoped for installation of a pumping test observation well adjacent to an existing high-capacity well, performing10 single-well pumping and recovery tests at existing wells, and collecting 10 pumping test reports from cooperators. Data review indicated a significant lack of publicly-available aquifer test data, particularly results with specific yield or storage coefficient values, in these aquifers.  Project resources were reallocated from conventional well installation to a strong public outreach program which identified cooperators for both field programs, and to use of direct push technology (DPT) for the alluvial wells.  Alluvial aquifer testing was performed by pumping 13 high-capacity irrigation wells with either cooperating entities' wells or DPT observation wells to obtain high-quality multi-well aquifer test data, from which aquifer storage values could be obtained.  The bedrock aquifer program resources were shifted from well installation to obtaining access to cooperators' existing well fields which provided sites for 9 multi-well aquifer tests and 4 single-well tests.  Additionally, cooperators throughout the Denver Basin provided another 86 sets of aquifer test data, of which 3 were multi-well tests.  These innovative methods changed the data collection effort from one multi-well aquifer test and 25 single-well tests, to 28 sets of multi-well aquifer test data and 88 sets of single-well test data, and obtaining widespread awareness and support for the project from the water resources community.  Insights gained from both the technical field activities and the collaborative approach will be discussed.