Agree on and steer goods/services

The service level agreement creates a clearly regulated relationship between the project and the (internal or external) service providers on the one hand, and between the project organization and the core organization on the other. Deviations during the provision of goods/services are identified and dealt with.

Boundaries:

• If it is determined during the initiation phase that the entire project merely constitutes procurement and that no other project activities are involved, procurement is transferred directly to the purchasing unit of the core organization and the project is terminated. HERMES does not support procurement alone.
• Comprehensive procurement by means of open or selective procedures and public publication (e.g. a public call for tenders) is carried out through the procurement module in the case of product or system adaptation, otherwise outside the project organization directly by the purchasing unit of the core organization.
• An agreement on the acquisition of operation- and maintenance-specific services during the utilization phase of the system between the user and the future operator of the system - the service level agreement (SLA) - is drawn up in the IT operation module.

The project acquires various goods/services internal and external to the organization which must be agreed on and steered. Goods/services acquired by the project include, for example, employee services (human resources), premises, IT resources, training, etc.

The need for goods/services is identified and analyzed and, if necessary, a market survey is carried out. Questions such as the following are clarified:

• Is a call for tenders justified, what is the specific need for action?
• What resources are to be procured, in what numbers and, in the case of human resources, e.g. with what specialist focus?
• What is the current market situation, what is the general offer?
• What type of market is it?
  How many tenderers are expected?
  Which tenderers and suppliers may be considered?
  Do contracts already exist and for how long will they remain valid?
  What are the requirements for the tenderers?
• When should the procurement take place and for what duration of use?
• Has funding been secured (project budget)?

Based on this, quotes are obtained and agreements concluded.

If, however, the needs and market analysis shows that a comprehensive procurement by means of open or selective procedures and public publication is necessary, resource procurement is carried out using the procurement module.

The goods/services are periodically checked for compliance with the planning and agreements.

This task deals with the following four cases:

1. Procurement of internal goods/services without cost allocation
2. Procurement of internal goods/services with cost allocation
3. Procurement of external goods/services: negotiated procedure (with one or several offers).
4. Procurement of external goods/services: invitation procedure (with several offers and evaluation report).

The first four cases are dealt with as follows:

• Case 1 and case 2
  The procurement of internal goods/services of the core organization (i.e. without jurisdiction in the event of a dispute) is regulated with project agreements and project SLAs for operation during the project phases.

The project agreement regulates the goods/services for project execution. The project SLA regulates the operation of the system (e.g. the test system) for operation during the project phases.

• Case 3
  The procurement of external goods/services with a negotiated procedure is regulated by means of quote requests, contracts, and SLAs specific to the service provider.
• Case 4
  The procurement of external goods/services with an invitation procedure is regulated by means of quote requests, contracts, and SLAs specific to the service provider. With the invitation procedure, an evaluation report is prepared for evaluating the offers.

Project agreements, project SLAs, SLAs specific to the service provider, and contracts are drawn up according to the requirements of the core organization. HERMES refers to these outcomes as an agreement.

During and upon completion of the provision of goods/services, a performance assessment is carried out and discussed with the project partners. It forms the basis for any steering measures. Deviations from the agreed goods/services or from the required needs are analyzed and dealt with in the manage changes task. Changes are initiated in good time to ensure compliance with the requirements (e.g. the legal basis). Significant problems are solved via the deal with problems and benefit from lessons learned task.

• Project initiation order
• Project management plan
• Execution order

• Establish the required role profiles (skills requirements) and the capacity requirement for human resources based on the planned tasks and outcomes, and record them as a needs requirement.
• Determine the need for infrastructure (rooms, hardware, software, means of communication, etc.).
• Draft internal project agreements and SLAs.
• Create quote requests for external goods/services, obtain and evaluate quotes. In the case of an invitation procedure, produce an evaluation report.
• Coordinate agreements with the controlling and compliance bodies and/or have the latter check them before concluding the agreements.
• Assess goods/services during and upon completion of the provision of goods/services.

• Evaluation report
• Agreement
• Quote request
• Offer