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Play 05: Structure budgets and contracts to support delivery

Mark Dixon edited this page Jun 8, 2016 · 1 revision

Comment

This play is focused on budgets and contract best practices to develop more agile procurement enablement by public sector agencies. As such, it does not directly apply to the response to this RFI for a prototype, but the RFI and its related projects does serve as an example to reflect the implementation of more agile contract processes and methods by the State of California. IBM recognizes and supports this agile method of contracting, both by the structure and content of our RFI response, as well as the methods and tools used to develop the prototype. IBM provides this evidence that we are highly qualified, proficient and capable in working together in this new manner.

Checklist

Budget includes research, discovery, and prototyping activities

Contract is structured to request frequent deliverables, not multi-month milestones

Contract is structured to hold vendors accountable to deliverables

Contract gives the government delivery team enough flexibility to adjust feature prioritization and delivery schedule as the project evolves

Contract ensures open source solutions are evaluated when technology choices are made

Contract specifies that software and data generated by third parties remains under our control, and can be reused and released to the public as appropriate and in accordance with the law

Contract allows us to use tools, services, and hosting from vendors with a variety of pricing models, including fixed fees and variable models like “pay-for-what-you-use” services

Contract specifies a warranty period where defects uncovered by the public are addressed by the vendor at no additional cost to the government

Contract includes a transition of services period and transition-out plan

Key Questions

What is the scope of the project? What are the key deliverables?

What are the milestones? How frequent are they?

What are the performance metrics defined in the contract (e.g., response time, system uptime, time period to address priority issues)?