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White Paper Contract Bidding and Technology Evaluation
White Paper Contract Bidding and Technology Evaluation
• The people who pay the money (financial and political perspective)
• The people who use the technology (usage and business perspective)
• The people who build and manage the technology (technology development,
project and operation management)
• Independent evaluation team (neutral and external, not counted in the three
parties)
The people who pay the money have the biggest power. Cost involves the cost of
building the solution, and also the cost of managing the solution in the long term. The
Sponsors won’t pay the money unless they have good inputs from the other parties.
The ultimate driver of the technology is the business user. However the feedback
from users is benefits driven and not cost driven. Their requirements may end up
costing the Sponsors a lot of money, as well as costing developers and administrators
lots of time and effort.
3) Types of Evaluation Tools and Methods
- Questionnaires, prototype, simulation, analytical, data collection, data analysis,
hypothesis, force field analysis, and hierarchy decision process, or weighted average
metrics, iterative feedback
4) Principles
Cost and benefits (ROI) [2]
- Cost - how much I need to pay
- Benefits
o Make money
o Save money
o Look good
o Feel good
5) Most simple high-level steps
- Develop criteria and define requirement
- Request for proposals (open for bids)
- Evaluation and selections
- Resulting contract clauses, terms and conditions
6) Bidder Instructions and Guidelines
- Bidder Instructions and Information
- Proposal requirements
- Evaluation and selection criteria.
- Additional requirements
- Resulting contract clauses
- Appendix
- Security requirement
Resulting
- Revision of departmental name
contract clauses
- Standard clauses and conditions
- Conditions
- Priority of documents
- Requirement
- Contract period
- Optional requirements
- Software licensing
- Shrink wrap licenses
- Delivery
- Redesign or reorganization of client
- Authorities
- Agency restricting
- Contract’s representative
- Basis of payment
- Basis of payment – options
- Professional services
- Time verification
- Liability for changes
- Time verification
- Liability for changes
- Maintenance price protection – after option periods
- Goods and services tax or harmonized sales and tax
- Inspection and acceptance
- Site regulations
- Government service contract payments
- Foreign nationals (local company)
- Foreign nationals (foreign company)
- Method of payment
- Termination/refund to Company
- Invoicing instructions
- Applicable laws
- Federal contractor’s program for employment equity –
certification
- International sanctions
- Modification of general conditions 9601 – Long form
- Limitation of liability
- Intellectual property right infringement
- Alternative dispute resolution
- SOW, pricing tables, proof of proposal testing, security
Appendix
requirements checklist, definitions
and price is 75% of total points. Lowest technical compliance proposal will be
chosen.
• Phase 5: Proof of proposal – test phase (10 working days), evaluation will
document the result, determine the proposed solution meet mandatory
requirement of RFP.
• Phase 6: Contractor selection – (met all mandatory requirement, overall
passed mark of the rated criteria, overall combination price and technical
merit, has passed the POC test), would granted an award.
Canadian University (Evaluation and selection methodology)
• Initial selection: Vendors should summarize how each component or relevant
service in the product family addresses the requirements outline.
• Selected few submissions: Technical Q & A session -> final check lists
preferred vendor selection (metrics), (features and performance (25%),
reputation and viability (25%), total cost of ownership (50%).
Complex Theoretical Models and processes
US State Library, “Technical evaluation methodology for RFP demonstration
Systems and RFP written responses. University of North Texas” [3]
Legal Software: extension the ISO 14598 evaluation process with a novel evaluation
framework - “A process for evaluating legal knowledge-based systems based upon
the Context Criteria Contingency-guidelines Framework” (complex)
Conclusion
Contract bid and technology proposal evaluation impacts the business decision of a
project, i.e. to open a project. Choosing the right methodologies to make a correct
decision is important to the buyer. Hitting the important points and address the needs
with the right solution design at a reasonable cost is important to the seller. Bear in
mind a technology proposal evaluation is not technical. Technical evaluation is only a
subset of the whole evaluation. It is driven by financial and organizational political
factors. Neglecting thorough technical analysis and technical merits may end up
costing you more and make your business look very bad at the end.
Reference
[1] Project Management Institute. (2008). A Guide to the Project Management Body
of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide) – Fourth Edition.
[2] Len Bass, Paul Clements, Rick Kazman, Linda Northrop, Amy Zaremski. (1997).
Recommended Best Industrial Practice for Software Architecture Evaluation
[3] William E, Moen, Kathleen Murray, Irene Lopatovska. (2003). Technical
evaluation methodology for RFP demonstration systems and RFP written responses.
University of North Texas,
[4] Maria Jean J. Hall , Richard Hall , John Zeleznikow . (2003). A process for
evaluating legal knowledge-based systems based upon the Context Criteria
Contingency-guidelines Framework
[5] Greta Kelly. (2008). collaborative process for evaluating new educational
technologies
[6] Cengiz Kahraman, Nu¨ fer Yasin Ates¸, Sezi C¸ evik, Murat Gu¨lbay and S.
Ayc¸a Erdog˘an ( 2003) Hierarchical fuzzy TOPSIS model for selection among logistics
information technologies
[7] Amir M. Sharif. (2008).Paralysis by analysis? The dilemma of choice and the risks of
technology evaluation
The Author
Eric Tse is an international recognized expert/consultant in Enterprise Access and
Identity Management Architecture Design and Implementation. He has been working
with international renowned experts in information technology in many prestigious
companies. He also pursues research interests in project management, financial
models, application/enterprise/solution architectures, compilation technology and
philosophy of science.
planning and scheduling. They also created a technique for gathering requirements
called “Method H”, and sell software to support the technique. For more
information on Project tools or Project Management visit www.projectperfect.com.au