Guide to Agile IT Vendor Management

Apart from enhancing the very development process, Agile methodologies present considerable benefits for vendor management. Agile methodology allows splitting the entire project development cycle into smaller sections and involves developers and stakeholders in implementing improvements.

It minimizes the extra costs and allows moving in the right direction based on the success and findings made at each phase. At the end of each sprint, the team defines the list and strategy for implementing further improvements.

Agile methodologies allow defining the roles clearly and effectively managing the project’s targets based on the signed contracts. Agile software development vendor management implies the identification of the business needs, document management, addressing the possible risks efficiently.

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Benefits why companies prefer agile vendor management:

• flexibility of deadlines
• need to involve procurement of legal documents
• control over the deliverables
• decreasing the stakes for the vendor, able to prove one’s efficiency in every sprint

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Guide for the efficient, agile vendor management

A. Choice of a vendor: Analyze the potential vendors, their qualifications, and social engagement. It will require extensive research.

Determine the capabilities and capacities of the potential partner. The main goal of this stage is to clarify the vendor’s ability to support the business goals of the customer business. It may require the execution of a small testing project.

B. Engagement: At this stage, a vendor and a customer negotiate the service agreements. After the establishment of the communication protocols, the work begins.

C. Symbiosis stage: This phase presupposes the optimization of the partnership for extracting the maximum value from the cooperation.

Make the cooperation maximally efficient. Since the investment in the collaboration is considerable, leveraging the maximum value is a must. The customer may look for the business areas which may also benefit from the current partnership and consider engaging the vendor in other projects. It provides a high degree of flexibility.

D. Disengagement phase: Exists a high possibility of avoiding the disengagement stage. However, it may also happen that business change or disputes may occur.

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The roles and responsibilities in agile vendor management

Managing the software vendors is rarely executed by one person in the company. As is often the case, multiple people are involved on both sides. Here are some typical roles involved inefficient management:

1. A project manager (PM): Control the deliverables money issues and define the project schedule.

2. Partner procurement specialist (PPS): This person is responsible for qualification, signing the agreements, and managing the relations with the partner.

3. Technical lead: A person is responsible for the technical aspects of the project.

4. Functional manager: Manages the team of narrow experts in the companies producing the hardware.

5. Partner manager: A high-level executive also acts as the primary executive contact to the key partners.

6. Legal representative: The expert is responsible for enforcing the legal terms of the contract.

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Steps to establish the agreement for efficient partnering

Launching the project, partners need to define and sign the arrangement comprising the critical nuances and parameters and the boundary conditions of the project. The parameters include budgeting, features, schedule, quality assessment criteria, and reliability.

1. Discussion of the critical factors and expectations: It is a step allowing a customer to assess the effectiveness of the partner.
2. Each partner minds one’s own business: The main target is to achieve the established goals. There may be requests for updates. However, vendors can innovate and use the info dial methods and instruments to get the job done.
3. A boundary break: May occur when the vendor does not have enough capabilities to finish the current project. It resisted a quick resetting of the project to cut the time to complete the project wasting the minimum possible time. The partner gets the notification that the boundary break will take place. Then the partner signs the agreement to measure the boundary conditions and metrics.
4. Keeping engaged: After the review is finished, the partners assume the new agreement establishing the new project goals. It guarantees the management dusting the escalation processes.

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Manage the cooperation efficiently while outsourcing

Outsourcing software development is the perfect solution for businesses connected to technology since it allows entrepreneurs to shift focus to strategic issues while assigning technology tasks to trained experts.

After deciding to outsource, companies have to find a credible and experienced technology partner able to satisfy the technology needs to the fullest, possessing all the necessary skills and effective technology toolset.

Successful vendor management with the help of agile methodology allows for enhancing the project’s success and decreasing the stress and costs spent on the project.

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Wrap Up

To sum up, successful vendor management depends on the methodology chosen. Since agile offers a lot of flexibility and the opportunity to control the process at any stage, it turns out to be the best possible choice! You may consider Managed IT, where one of the responsibilities is to maintain the function of the process of its services.