Designing a guideline for selecting a supplier for an agile fixed budget & resource contract in the public sector

Lene Pries-Heje; Jan Pries-Heje

Designing a guideline for selecting a supplier for an agile fixed budget & resource contract in the public sector

Lene Pries-Heje
, Jan Pries-Heje

Roskilde University

Research output: Journal Article or Conference Article in Journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review

Abstract

When you have stable and non-ambiguous requirements then a classic contract for
IS between a supplier and a public sector institution based on a requirements specification
may be well suited. However, if you have to accept many changes or have ambiguous
requirements then you may end up with “endless” re-negotiation of the requirements; you
need a more flexible way to develop IS. A new way of coping with many changes is to use an
agile development approach and a fixed budget and resources contract. This paper presents an
example case. We analyse the case and design a guideline for how to implement a fixed
budget and resources contract in the public sector. The guideline includes elements to cope
with challenges in a tender process such as transparency, criteria for supplier selection, and
live assessment of resource skills and capabilities, as well as achieving the flexibility for
change needed.

Original language	Danish
Conference proceedings	Proceedings / Information Systems Research In Scandinavia (IRIS)
Volume	2014
Issue number	27
Number of pages	23
ISSN	0000-0036
Publication status	Published - 2014

Keywords

Design science research
public sector
agile resource contract
tender process

Cite this

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title = "Designing a guideline for selecting a supplier for an agile fixed budget \& resource contract in the public sector",

abstract = "A classic contract for IS between a supplier and a public sector institution based on a requirements specification is well suited for a stable situation. However, if you have to accept many changes or have ambiguous requirements then you may end up with “endless” re-negotiation of the requirements; you need a more flexible way to develop IS. A new way of coping with many changes is to use an agile development approach and a fixed budget and resources contract. Thus instead of specifying requirements for functionality you specify requirements for resources; capabilities for the team and the technical support structure. This paper presents a case where that was done. We analyse the case using the iron triangle for projects as our theoretical lens and design a guideline for how to implement a fixed budget and resources contract in the public sector. The guideline includes elements to cope with challenges in a tender process such as transparency, criteria for supplier selection, and live assessment of resource skills and capabilities, as well as achieving the flexibility for change needed. ",

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AU - Pries-Heje, Jan

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N2 - A classic contract for IS between a supplier and a public sector institution based on a requirements specification is well suited for a stable situation. However, if you have to accept many changes or have ambiguous requirements then you may end up with “endless” re-negotiation of the requirements; you need a more flexible way to develop IS. A new way of coping with many changes is to use an agile development approach and a fixed budget and resources contract. Thus instead of specifying requirements for functionality you specify requirements for resources; capabilities for the team and the technical support structure. This paper presents a case where that was done. We analyse the case using the iron triangle for projects as our theoretical lens and design a guideline for how to implement a fixed budget and resources contract in the public sector. The guideline includes elements to cope with challenges in a tender process such as transparency, criteria for supplier selection, and live assessment of resource skills and capabilities, as well as achieving the flexibility for change needed.

AB - A classic contract for IS between a supplier and a public sector institution based on a requirements specification is well suited for a stable situation. However, if you have to accept many changes or have ambiguous requirements then you may end up with “endless” re-negotiation of the requirements; you need a more flexible way to develop IS. A new way of coping with many changes is to use an agile development approach and a fixed budget and resources contract. Thus instead of specifying requirements for functionality you specify requirements for resources; capabilities for the team and the technical support structure. This paper presents a case where that was done. We analyse the case using the iron triangle for projects as our theoretical lens and design a guideline for how to implement a fixed budget and resources contract in the public sector. The guideline includes elements to cope with challenges in a tender process such as transparency, criteria for supplier selection, and live assessment of resource skills and capabilities, as well as achieving the flexibility for change needed.

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KW - agile resource contract

KW - tender process

M3 - Tidsskriftartikel

SN - 0000-0036

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JO - Proceedings / Information Systems Research In Scandinavia (IRIS)

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