Software Project Management For Dummies®

Chapter 12. Procuring Goods and Services

In This Chapter

• Finding the right vendor

• Hosting a bidders' conference

• Understanding contracts

• Negotiating contract issues

• Writing your statement of work

• Closing the contract

• Performing vendor audits

You've put a lot of work into determining your project's scope, documenting your project plan, and creating a super change control system. You have the cream of the crop for your project team. What's left to do? Well, lots. In order to complete your project to satisfy your stakeholders' requirements, you need an application for software testing. Yes, that's right, you need a software‐testing doohickey.

You've already decided that it is out of the scope of the project to create the testing doohickey yourself, so you must purchase the software‐testing system for your project. This is called a make or buy decision. You've decided to buy, so now you start the procurement process, which includes all the activities involved when you purchase goods or services. Although you have lots of options when you participate in the procurement processes, they all have one thing in common: Procurement (the art of buying resources) is usually a formal written process.

To get back to our procurement scenario, you know that several testing‐services firms are in the market, but you need to find just the right one for a reasonable cost, and you only want to deal with a reputable vendor. You must go in search of the perfect vendor for this project, or at least the perfect vendor ...