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V: Selecting the Solution
Presenting Recommendations to the Steering Committee
Once negotiations within the selection team have been concluded and a solution has been agreed upon by the project management team, the project management team will be ready to present the results of the evaluation to the steering committee. The presentation to the steering committee should be similar regardless of the acquisition strategy. The selection team may wish to adopt the "preferred solution" approach, which allows making a specific recommendation while keeping other alternatives open to the institution in the event that the final agreements and contracts cannot be consummated.
The presentation to the steering committee should include the following key items:
- An introduction that reviews the background to the project and provides a summary of the key findings.
- Rationale for the new system that will recap the reasons that the project was undertaken. (This will reflect the initial steering committee report and the discussions on the need for improvement in the business and technology areas.)
- Review of the overall project process involved in reaching the recommendation, including the teams of people who participated in the various parts of the project.
- Review of the selection process, basically summarizing the steps outlined in this chapter. The review will include the key contents of the RFP, the alternative solutions considered, and an overview of the measurements and weights used to evaluate business, technology, and other requirements. Reference should be made to any reference checks, site visits, benchmarks, on-site demonstrations, and so on.
- Review of benefits of the proposed system in all key strategic, business, and technology areas. Benefits for users in different departments can be summarized, as well as technical benefits.
- A summary of key contract conditions, covering areas such as long-term commitments, hardware, system acceptance, custom programming, partnership arrangements, any other third-party software included in the plan, implementation support, and details on the actual implementation plan.
The financial considerations of the proposal can be dealt with in a separate section of the presentation, identifying the costs for major areas of the project. Some key areas might include the following:
- Hardware, operating software, and other related equipment
- Application software costs by module
- Custom programming modifications
- Partnership development costs
- Other third-party software costs
- Vendor or other implementation support
- Project management
- Additional staffing during implementation (for example, for data conversion)
- Out-of-pocket expenses
- Outside consultants for any part of the implementation
- Computer room preparations
- Additional network equipment or software
- Printers, terminals, personal computers
- Other equipment such as cash registers
- Project contingency
- First-year maintenance costs
- Training costs prior to, during, and after implementation, for staff and users
- Costs of setting up a training facility
- Costs of backup and recovery during cutover
- Costs of running the old and new systems in parallel
- Other . . .
The total sum of the itemized costs will be the proposed budget for the project. Depending on the extent of participation by the institution's personnel, these internal costs may be identified separately in the cost section.
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