Vendor Delivery Project Evaluation

Vendor Project Approach

As a part of RFP, Vendor should submit the project approach, and a draft project plan. This level of detail will provide:

• A ‘decent confidence’ view of timelines from Vendor perspective will help you to have a reference point for negotiating more aggressive (but realistic) timelines.
• A common reference point for Vendor and customer to ensure that both are on same page, and all aspects of the project have been considered.
• Allow you to check, if Vendor is not over-committing for sake of closing the sale.
• It is worthwhile to go through some iteration on the project plan/approach as this has implication on resources and timelines, which has a direct impact on cost/commercials. Some Vendors provide the software package at rock-bottom price so that they can make revenue out of the customer later by selling high-priced services. A detailed view of project plan helps you to achieve a more realistic projection.

TIP- Typically a project manager has to commit timelines and cost to the project sponsor. One of the traps is that project manager forces Vendor to commit to unrealistic timelines which ultimately have to be owned by the project manager. It is upon the project manager to play a balancing act between aggressive timelines and realism.

Vendor Project structure

This is a typical weak spot of any project agreement. The project team structure should involve:

• Team Structure

  - Project Organization Structure
  - The Roles and Responsibilities
  - What a role will do and what it will not do
  - ‘A Typical day in the project’
  - FAQs
  - What is Primary vs. Shared responsibility

• Communication & Management Structure

  - Frequency, type and audience of communications.
  - Issue management
  - Escalation management

• Project Risks and Mitigation

  - What are key project risks and their mitigation
  - Risk management process
  

PLEASE REFER DELIVERY EVALUATION MATRIX Execution-MiHPractice Tool to enable an effective DELIVERY CAPABILITY Evaluation for a tool/solution provider.