Hi,
I would like to get some suggestions for regarding with software outsourcing. I am working as an IT support in SME company.
My duty is need to communicate well with vendors and need to give all required data according to vendor requests for new system.
Currently contract is signed already for new system and make half payment done. And then this system needs to finish at the second week of April.
I tried to negotiate well with them and currently I cannot satisfy for vendors’ response. To be honest, I don’t have any experiences for vendors’ management.
Now I feel disappointment and how can I communicate well with them to get the good working system and to meet the deadline.
Should I need to ask detail timeline from them (i.e…Migration time...how did they progress our project?)
Please kindly suggest me how can I handle for this outsourcing.
I am looking forwards to your reply to solve the problem.
Thanks.
Best Regards,
Skycloud
Request Suggestions for Software Vendors Management
Hi Skycloud,
I'm not sure you have adequately explained the problem with your vendor, but a couple of points you might like to think about:
Good luck!
Duncan
I'm not sure you have adequately explained the problem with your vendor, but a couple of points you might like to think about:
- It seems from what you say you don't have a detailed task level plan from the vendor. You must obtain a plan showing all the areas of activity, tasks, timeline, resources and dependencies. This will help you understand the work they will carry out and a realistic date for delivery. Once this is agreed with the vendor you can monitor their progress.
- You need regular status updates with the vendor to understand whether they are on track, or if work is slipping behind. I favour daily Scrum meetings; 15 minutes a day where the participants say what they did yesterday; what they plan to do today and highlight any blockers slowing them down, or stopping them moving forward. If there are blockers you need to help remove them.
- Presumably you have sent the vendor detailed requirements and a functional specification. If not you are at risk of the product or service failing to meet your needs. This will vary depending on whether you are buying a bespoke system or a package solution that is being configured.
Good luck!
Duncan
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begeland
skycloud-
I agree with Duncan on this one. It sounds like your vendor is working on their own and you're not maintaining control over them. Micromanagement shouldn't be necessary, but you're getting very close to rollout and I think you might be at that point. You need details on where they are on all assigned tasks and those should be tasks you're monitoring closely in your project plan. Weekly progress meetings with them are critical...at this point you may want to have them daily if necessary. And you should be working of a weekly status report with them. They are part of the project, but you may need to manage them almost as their own project between now and April to make sure you rein them in and they complete what's expected of them on time.
Brad
I agree with Duncan on this one. It sounds like your vendor is working on their own and you're not maintaining control over them. Micromanagement shouldn't be necessary, but you're getting very close to rollout and I think you might be at that point. You need details on where they are on all assigned tasks and those should be tasks you're monitoring closely in your project plan. Weekly progress meetings with them are critical...at this point you may want to have them daily if necessary. And you should be working of a weekly status report with them. They are part of the project, but you may need to manage them almost as their own project between now and April to make sure you rein them in and they complete what's expected of them on time.
Brad