The Information Services Procurement Library (ISPL) is a best practice library for the management of Information Technology related acquisition processes (derived from Euromethod). It helps both the customer and supplier organization to achieve the desired quality using the corresponded amount of time and money by providing methods and best practices for risk management, contract management, and planning. ISPL focuses on the relationship between the customer and supplier organization: It helps constructing the request for proposal, it helps constructing the contract and delivery plan according to the project situation and risks, and it helps monitoring the delivery phase. ISPL is a unique Information Technology method because where most other Information Technology methods and frameworks focus on development (e.g. DSDM, RUP), ISPL focuses purely on the procurement of information services. The target audience for ISPL consists of procurement managers, acquisition managers, programme managers, contract managers, facilities managers, service level managers, and project managers in the IT (Information Technology) area. Because of ISPL's focus on procurement it is very suitable to be used with ITIL (for IT Service Management) and PRINCE2 (for Project Management).This article is a part of the Method Engineering Encyclopedia of the Utrecht University.
Benefits There are four main benefits of using ISPL. The customer can take advantage of the competitive market Proposals of suppliers become comparable The use of a strategy that really fits the situation The contract can be used as a control instrument
These benefits are elaborated in the paragraphs below.
Proposals of suppliers become comparable ISPL specifies the table of contents of the candidate supplier organisation's proposal. It also supplies the customer and candidate supplier organisations with one clear terminology. This makes the proposals of the candidate suppliers very easy to compare.
History ISPL is developed and published in 1999 by a consortium of five European companies: EXIN and ID Research (ORDINA) from the Netherlands, FAST from Germany, SEMA from France and TIEKE from Finland. The development of ISPL was part of the SPRITE-S2 programme that was launched in 1998 by the European Commission. ISPL is derived from Euromethod and based on the research of about 200 real-life acquisitions.
Structure Although ISPL is a best practice library it does not only consist of books. The structure of ISPL is displayed in Figure 1. In this figure the books are represented by squares and the other tools are represented by circles. The basis is formed by four practical books, the IS Procurement Management Essentials. Additionally, a specific book addresses public procurement. Plug-ins to the IS Procurement Management Essentials are provided for specific needs and situations. Currently, three plug-ins are available for which there is a large market potential. A fourth plug-in on the acquisition of product software is currently under construction.
Follow the links below to get more information on the different parts of ISPL. #Managing Acquisition Processes #Specifying Deliverables #Managing Risks and Planning Deliveries
Meta-Process Model Figure 2 illustrates the meta-process model of ISPL. This model can be used to easily link and compare ISPL to other Information Technology methods and frameworks. I will provide each process with a link to more information.
Define requirements
The definition of requirements is out of the scope of ISPL. For more information on defining requirements I would like to refer to the entry on Requirements management processes.
Specify deliverables
Both customer and supplier organisation have to specify the information and services they want to receive from the other party. More information on the specification of deliverables can be found in the chapter on #Specifying Deliverables.
Situation Analysis, Identify Risks, Select Strategy
The customer organisation has to conduct a situation analysis to be able to identify critical risks and mitigate them using an appropriate delivery strategy. More information can be found in the chapter '#Managing Risks and Planning Deliveries'.
Make decisions
During the execution of the delivery plan the customer and supplier make decisions at each decision point. This is the #Contract Monitoring phase.
Acquisition Process Sequence This chapter provides a high-level description of the ISPL acquisition process from a customer-supplier-interaction point-of-view. Figure 3 illustrates the sequence of customer and supplier processes during the acquisition. The following paragraphs link the processes in Figure 3 to the theoretical information that is present in this entry and thus provide a link from practise to theory.
Make RFP
To construct a request for proposal the customer first needs to describe the acquisition goal and other requirements, and perform a situation and risk analysis. Using the risk analysis a delivery plan has to be constructed. More information on all of these activities can be found in the chapter #Managing Risks and Planning Deliveries and the paragraph #Acquisition initiation in the chapter #Managing Acquisition Processes. The request for proposal is a #Tendering deliverable.
Make proposal
The supplier company writes a proposal in which it clarifies how it can fulfil the acquisition goal. More information on proposals can be found in the paragraph #Tendering deliverable.
Select
The customer selects a supplier. The selection activity is an important step in the #Tendering process, part of the #Procurement process.
Negotiate contract
Customer and supplier negotiate the contract. Usually this means that the delivery plan is refined to a more detailed level. The information in the chapter #Managing Risks and Planning Deliveries can be used to update the delivery plan.
Make decisions
For each contract the delivery plan is executed. Customer and supplier make decisions at each decision point. For an individual contract the final decision is whether #Contract Completion is reached. The deliverables used in this phase are of the #Decision point deliverable type. The final decision of the complete acquisition process is the #Acquisition completion.
Managing Acquisition Processes The ISPL Acquisition Process is the actual process of obtaining a system or service to achieve a goal contributing to business objectives and/or needs. It is one of the most important parts of the ISPL method. This chapter is a summary of .
Model Figure 4 displays a model of the ISPL acquisition process. The acquisition process consists of three sequential process steps. Acquisition initiation Procurement (one or more) Acquisition completion
These individual process steps are discussed in more detail in the paragraphs below.
Target domain and service domain In ISPL the terms target domain and service domain are used quite frequently.
Target domain The target domain is the part of the customer organization that is affected by the service.
Service domain The service domain is the service organization that delivers the service, i.e. the supplier.
Acquisition initiation The first process to be executed by the customer contract authority within an acquisition is the acquisition initiation process. It consists of two sequential process steps: acquisition goal definition and acquisition planning. The final result of the process is an acquisition plan reflecting an acquisition strategy, along with a clear understanding of systems and services requirements defining the acquisition goal. The acquisition initiation process is illustrated in Figure 5.
A more detailed description of the Acquisition Initiation phase can be found here.
Acquisition goal definition The result of this step is a sufficiently clear understanding of the requirements to the systems and services that are the goal of the acquisition and the costs and benefits for the business and its various stakeholders. This process step consists of four activities: Define the target domain. Refine the definition of the acquisition goal in terms of systems and services requirements. Analyse costs and benefits. Analyse stakes and stakeholders.
The input of business needs is ideally provided by Requirements management processes.
Acquisition planning The goal of this phase is to define an acquisition strategy adapted to the situation, plan the main decision points of the acquisition, and establish the acquisition organisation. The acquisition planning phase consists of the following activities:
Determine overall service delivery scenarios. Analyse risks. Design acquisition strategy within the risk management framework: Plan the main decision points of the acquisition. Setting-up the customer organisation within the acquisition
Steps two to four are discussed in detail in the chapter #Managing Risks and Planning Deliveries.
Both the acquisition goal definition and acquisition planning are activities within the phase of Acquisition Initiation. A more thorough entry of this phase can be found here.
Procurement process The procurement step of the ISPL acquisition process embodies the obtaining of one single contract. Note that the acquisition itself can contain multiple procurements. Such a contract consists of one or more projects or ongoing services. The procurement step consists of three sequencing processes:
Tendering Contract monitoring Contract completion
Tendering The aim of the tendering process is to select a supplier and a proposal for the considered services and systems and to agree with the chosen supplier on a contract in which both parties’ deliveries and responsibilities are defined. A very important aspect of such a contract is the planning of the decision points. The tendering process consists of four different steps:
preparation of request for proposal response preparation supplier selection contract preparation and signing
Contract Monitoring This process aims to monitor the services defined in the contract. It has to ensure that the deliverable and services conform to the requirements in the contract. The most important activity of the contract monitoring process is the execution of the decision points. In the decision point execution the customer organization makes judgments and decisions based on the status of the procurement at any given time.
Contract Completion The aim of this process is to ensure that all outstanding technical and commercial requirements in the procurement contract (that was written and signed in the tendering phase) have been met.
Acquisition completion This is the formal completion of all the contracts of the acquisition. The acquisition manager (often this is the customer company's contract authority) has to verify the successful conclusion of all contracts and the achievement of the acquisition goal. The acquisition completion process consists of four activities: Check that all contracts have been completed Assess the achievement of the acquisition goal Decide whether the acquisition is complete Write an acquisition report
The following paragraphs elaborate on the different activities of acquisition completion.
Check that all contracts have been completed The acquisition manager has to check the completion of the different contracts by checking if each individual contract's completion phase has been achieved and the required reports are written. If necessary the acquisition manager has to trigger the contract completion process for contracts that need it.
Assess the achievement of the acquisition goal