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General Requirements Guidelines - Simm Section 170a - California Department Of Technology Page 12

2.8 Contractor Responsibility

Also referred to as project/transition requirements, contractor requirements clearly identify the

responsibilities, activities, and deliverables provided by the contractor.

Do not use generalized statements, such as:

"The contractor will work in concert with the State to provide/develop/design the solution."

This statement suggests that the activities for the development/design provided by both the contractor

and the State will be combined. This langue has the potential for miscommunication once the vendor

contract is signed, as it suggests that the state hasn’t figured out exactly what their requirement is but

plans to discover it later. Statements such as this can spawn finger pointing and expensive change

orders and schedule delays.

Provide specific boundaries around both contractor and state responsibilities. The separate

responsibilities may be combined to produce an expected outcome, however, specific tasks and

activities should be accountable to one and only one party. Additionally, language such as, “including

but not limited to….” fosters ability to object, confusion, and misunderstanding and should not be used

when describing deliverable contents.

2.9 Deliverables

Solicitations for IT systems should always pay for performance or outcomes as opposed to paying for

paper deliverables. This is usually the result of an excessive numbers of plans required by the state for

vendors to produce without requiring that the vendor’s solution perform at various stages of delivery.

Oftentimes project plans call upon execution of processes and procedures that fall outside the scope of

the vendor's contract leaving the state empty handed. Instead, focus vendor payments on the validation

of solution milestone performance; if the solution doesn't perform as required and documented in the

requirements then payment is not issued.

This allows the project to focus on fundamentals – including professional services, labor, software and

equipment; as well as responsibility for cost, schedule, quality, and management. By focusing on

performance or outcomes the project also avoids considerable administrative effort managing materials

of limited value (short or long term).

Deliverables should be functional and as few as possible. Attempt to limit the number of deliverables to

be provided after contract award and require coordination of those few deliverables with the submitted

proposal. Consider converting many, if not all, administrative deliverables into “general requirements.”

California Department of Technology

SIMM Section 170A

General Requirements Guidelines

August 2016

General Requirements Guidelines - Simm Section 170a - California Department Of Technology Page 12