Better Vendor Requirements

J. LeRoy is ExecVP, International Institute for Learning.

  Requirements Management   ProjectsAtWork  

Does your organization have a “vendor management” problem — or is really a “requirements gathering and writing” problem? Here are some recommendations.

Among the organizations struggling with outsourced projects that have gone bad, or that have failed completely, the most often cited reason is vendor management issues, as if the vendor is always the one to blame and the buyer is completely blameless.  Rarely is this the case. 

Upon closer inspection, and in 9 out of 10 instances, the root cause of these often unspecified vendor management problems leading a project astray or into failure can be traced to poorly defined requirements. While clear requirements are at the foundation of any project, they are even more critical for outsourced ones where the “rule of law,” in the form of a contractual relationship, governs the nature of the relationship between buyer and seller. 

The results of a new survey conducted by ESI International show that the top risks of concern to organizations when outsourcing also can be traced essentially to poor requirements management. 

Approaching Requirements

In its simplest form, the way to attain better project requirements is to start by thinking about four things:

> What do you need to buy? – The project deliverable

> When do you need it? &…

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