Presented by:

Gene Pogreba

Technical Account Manager

Aptude Webinar Series

What You Need to Know About the IT Managed Services Model

The Ins & Outs of the New Fixed Bid

What are IT Managed Services?

The “new” fixed bid

Known set of deliverables

Known costs

“Too much”Client

involvement

“Too little”Client

involvement

How Does IT Managed

Services Model Fit Into Your

IT Project Portfolio?

Need

Additional

Staff

Need to

free-up time for

IT managers

FTEs

Managed

Services

Benefits of IT Managed Services

• Getting to know multiple vendors

• Establish

– Rates

– Effort

– Location of work

– Known project costs

• Base price

• Travel expenses

• Contingency

• Flexible team size

• Knowledge building

on vendor’s time

• Improved staff

augmentation pool

• Project cost

• Travel expenses

• Contingency

– Overrun

– Minor changes

– Missed requirements

• Define:

Processes

Document

deliverables

Development

deliverables

QA Deliverables

Implementation and

warranty deliverables

• Legal transfer

– Contractual obligation

• “Good will” transfer

– Vendor wants the

client to succeed

– Vendor wants to

build relationship

– Vendor wants the

next project

• High level oversight

– Weekly status

– Issue escalation

• No HR admin

– Reviews

– Time tracking

• No transition

planning

– Resources go away

Things to Watch Out For

• Low definition of

deliverables

• Missing rates

• Missing effort by

deliverables

• Low-ball bids

– What’s the vendor

benefit

– Will the vendor try to

make it up elsewhere

• Client-known “gotchas!”

• Clear project definition

– Understanding of the desired results

– Ability to “spec out” a valid estimate

• Consider breaking apart larger projects with greater unknowns

– Analysis project

– Development project

• Losing core competency experience

• Crossing vendors

Crossing Vendors: Cautionary Example

•SIT

•UAT

•Performance testing

•Data modeling

•Development

•Unit testing

•Business requirements

•Analysis

•Functional design

Analysis & Design

Development

TestingMaintenance

Vendor 1 Vendor 2

Vendor 3 Vendor 4

Vendor

Potential breakdowns between Vendors 1 & 2:• Loss of continuity• Added expense• Missed information

• Specific requirements• General knowledge

• Finger-pointing

• Defined process– Add to plan

– Ensure delivery

• Contingency Consideration

• Number of changes

• Maturity through relationship growth

• Known vendors– Leverage relationship

• New vendors– Adds competition

– New resource pools

– Request samples

– Request references

• Beware of pure offshore– Communication issues

– Reduced visibility

• Remember, client is

engaged in process

• Checkpoints

– Reviews of designs

– Reviews of code

– User Acceptance

Testing

– Production turnover

• Readiness

• Support transition

Development Phase

Closed

Statement of Work

Project PlanFunctional

DesignTechnical

Design

Test Plan Test Cases

30-day Post-production Support

IT Biz & IT Biz & IT IT

Testing Phase

ETL & BI Report Dev.

Unit TestingSystem

Integration Testing

IT IT IT

Requirements Document

Client

User Acceptance

Testing

Client

Summary

• IT Managed Services optimizes client/vendor

involvement

– Helps free up your time for other projects

– Relieves you of project staffing concerns

• Managed Services should be a natural

extension of the IT department

– Statement of Work provides peace of mind that

costs and deliverables are known

– Relationship provides flexibility

Thank you!

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Aptude Webinar Series

What You Need to Know About the IT Managed Services Model

The Ins & Outs of the New Fixed Bid