Practical guidelines for building effective IT
user/supplier partnerships have been issued by the Office of
Government Commerce.
In a separate move, IT suppliers' organisation Intellect has come
up with 10 commitments to users to address criticism by the OGC
earlier in the year about poor IT delivery to government.
The OGC's Effective Partnering guidelines cover critical factors in
creating a strong working relationship built on mutual benefit.
They focus on taking the right approach, creating the right
behaviours, putting the right people in the place and ensuring
effective delivery.
Among a wealth of advice for suppliers and users, the guidelines
highlight several common partnership pitfalls:
The wrong people
Choosing the wrong individual for a crucial role could derail the
whole arrangement. "In some situations, interpersonal skills could
be more important than technical understanding," the OGC
said.
Lack of cultural readiness
Even though the benefits of partnering may be clear and achievable,
the organisation may not be ready to work in new ways, or to be
able to change in a short time.
Unclear objectives
If the objectives for both parties of the collaboration are not
clear at the outset, no amount of management effort will make the
partnering relationship successful.
Inadequate performance measurement
Service levels and baseline measurements are crucial for assessing
suppliers' performance, but these can be very difficult to
establish at the outset. It is also hard to find relevant
benchmarking measures for meaningful comparisons.
www.ogc.gov.uk
Intellect's 10 commitments to users
To demonstrate its determination to clean up the image of
companies who supply IT to government, suppliers organisation
Intellect - with the backing of its larger members - made the
following commitments to users:
- To build an effective relationship with the customer founded on
mutual trust and openness with a clear understanding of each
other's goals and interests
- To do its best to agree with the user a "full and robust
understanding" of requirements and the broader business
context
- To speak up to suggest improvements to a programme
- To only bid for what it can deliver
- To declare all relevant assumptions that suppliers make,
especially with regard to customers' information or services
- To ensure that programmes are managed professionally, using an
agreed methodology with a clear focus on delivery of business
benefits
- To identify, analyse and manage risks
- To provide enough transparency through the supply chain to
enable sub-contractors to provide end-customer visibility
- To put forward teams and managers who have the necessary
authority, skills, experience and availability for the
programme
- To encourage staff to acquire and maintain appropriate
professional standards and competencies.
www.intellectuk.org