We have a system which went live reaching its 4th year now. This system is outsourced for its development works to an oversea solutions provider (vendor). We do not hold any source codes of the system. The arrangement is for us to provide functional specs, test the system upon codedrop, migration to production site & maintenance of the hardware, etc. During the past 4 years, it has been an agonising time for our team members who suffered complaints from our business units. We had problems due to system downtime during the initial phase after system went live with core dumps and vendor could not identify what went wrong until we engaged the BEA guys to come in. Next and ongoing problem is the quality of work from the vendor - every codedrop creates new bugs which has made our testing a very tiring exercise plus team morale has dropped. Even with our automated regression testing, there is always something which will not work and many times problems could not be simulated and if it does not surface again, it is considered closed because we had a hard time chasing after the vendor for a cause and we are too busy handling the existing issues. Production problems were piling high. There is no penalty clauses, exit point, or interest to claim source codes in the contract agreement, let alone SLAs. We are in the process of creating an SLA but the vendor has sounded that this will increase his charges. Last year, there was a change in PM. Things did not change for the better - in fact the relationship between the vendor & the new PM got worse. Projects did not go live on time with fingers pointing to each other & the vendor claimed that the functional specs were not clear. Two days ago, the new PM has requested that the PM from the vendor is to be replaced who has been with us since the system was developed.
Can anyone tell me what went wrong and going forward what can be done? How can we enforce quality from the vendor? Saving Changes...
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Isabelle BadinandAgile Delivery Manager| AvivaLondon, United Kingdom
I used to work for a supplier and we would usually agree the following checkpoints with clients:
- Spec review: a meeting where we would state our understanding of the spec to the client to make sure we were all on the same wavelength. Very often a member of our team would had been involved in requirement gathering with the client anyway so would have a good understanding of the spec
- Regular progress review: review each bit of functionality as they get delivered
- Review of test logs
Does your supplier have an internal quality system? If yes you probably should review it with them. If not you probably should agree some kind of quality control. Also you could ask them what they propose to do for you to trust they can delivery quality software. Saving Changes...
Many companies that once saw 40% savings in outsourcing to India and China are now bringing these projects back to the USA and doing them inhouse. Unfortunately, the savings of outsourcing often get ate up with difference in cultures, communication styles, and total lack of vendor management processes and effective oversite. As it is often said in project management you can't monitor what you can't see. And like they say on Wall Street, pigs get slathered and your shortsited management team is getting exactly what it desires - FAILURE!!! I would suggest bringing this project inhouse, email me if you need my turnaround expertise. Saving Changes...
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