Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Open
Ordered
In realisation
Accepted
In operation.
Before specific requests can be dealt with, they should be formulated as func-
tional specifications. A standard structure for this should be employed. Cost esti-
mates can be formulated only after agreement with the supplier on these
specifications. The eventual order for realisation depends of course also on prior-
ities and budget available.
After ordering the supplier can then draft his technical specifications. As func-
tional specifications are concerned with the business content itself, technical spec-
ifications describe, how realisation will proceed. Therefore we have two more
status items for requests:
Functional specifications drafted and accepted
Technical specifications drafted and accepted.
Agreement to those documents should be granted by representatives from the
business units of the customer.
To ease later acceptance procedures, which will follow realisation, different
requests should be collected and grouped together as releases or versions with fixed
milestones, presenting the time basis for acceptance. Sometimes this is difficult to
sustain throughout the proceedings. Because of priorities resulting from technical or
functional urgencies or from influences from outside the project there is always the
possibility to deliver special functional packages in between. Normally, however,
request management in cooperation with the supplier should produce a binding
release schedule with milestone end dates.
To track the actual status of specific requests agreed communication and feed-
back procedures between request management and all parties concerned are nec-
essary, including:
User/requester
Development unit of the supplier
Quality management/acceptance coordination
Operations support.
2.3.1.1 Tender Procedures
Request management together with purchasing, IT managers and business units
should participate in tender procedures for new software. We will not look at the
commercial selection process here. It is important that pricing and agreement about
delivery dates should be based on documents agreed upon by all parties. These
documents are the functional and technical specifications mentioned above.
