[53] in Tooltime
Proposal
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Barbara Goguen)
Thu Mar 21 11:30:09 1996
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 11:28:25 -0500
To: joan@scopus.com
From: goguen@MIT.EDU (Barbara Goguen)
Cc: tooltime@MIT.EDU, cec@MIT.EDU, paheff@MIT.EDU
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Hi, Joan. Thanks for living up to your commitment to get a proposal to us
by Monday. I think what you sent certainly gives us a good starting point
for negotiation. Reading the initial text of the introduction, I was
impressed by the amount of detail around our needs that you captured from
our brief conversation. We do have some questions, however, regarding the
rest of the proposal.
First of all, we could really benefit from some clarification on what is
included in your rapid prototyping phase - what is the deliverable? Is it
a working, functional prototype that actually runs on top of an Oracle
database, or is it a set of screen mock-ups, etc. that don't necessarily
function?
It is common practice for us to try to get 3 scenarios, in this case a low,
medium and high end proposal. From your perspective, where would this
proposal be on that scale? From our end, it is much higher in cost than we
anticipated and than we can afford.
Unless we are missing something, the time estimates don't quite add up. If
we count up all the "PM" indicators, we come up with 13 man-days PM, not
30. If your assumption is that for each BA man-day there will also be a PM
man-day, then we come up with 31. Where does the 30 come from? The
Implementation man-days also appear to add up to 42, though your estimate
totals them at 41. It does appear as though your final total is based on
the 30 and 42 numbers that we cannot determine the origin of.
Some of the time estimates seem particularly high. For instance, why might
it take 9 man-days to review business requirements for our first help desk
implementation? We have gathered a rough draft of requirements in the
spreadsheet we shared with you. And, why would it take 4 days to do the
project planning and definition?
Assuming that a functional prototype comes out of Phase II, once we get to
phase IV, we were assuming that MIT folks would assume much greater
responsibility for project management and implementation to ensure that we
feel a true sense of ownership by the end of the project. We would
certainly need Scopus resources to setup and customize WebTEAM and the
EMail interface, but I am uncertain why each of these are listed as
requiring 3 implementor days plus 1 project manager day. I would assume
that Scopus employees would know these products and their setup well enough
that it wouldn't require 4 man-days a piece to get them up and running
here.
I have a concern regarding the * note that is associated with the Phase IV
customization of the base Scopus product. It states that "Modification of
the database and additional customization of the base Scopus product with
the associated redesign of the system architecture will significantly
increase the estimated time and cost." Yet in your earlier description of
what happens in Phase IV, Activities 2 and 3 itemize database and Scopus
base product modifications as things that would normally happen.
Our timeline does not have the luxury of 2.6 months to get this help desk
software up and running. Ideally, we would have the product up and running
in 1 month's time, at least in some limited fashion. We might be able to
extend this to 6 weeks if necessary.
Under Project Assumptions, I would like to get a better sense of what you
mean by MIT-IS will provide "adequate work space for Scopus Consulting
Services...". We would need a better definition of what you mean by
adequate, and for how many people - would it be just for the 1 implementor,
or also for the Project Manager/Business Analyst?
The grand total of $122,456 plus expenses is certainly out of reach for us,
and I think gives us more than what we need. As you'll see from my counter
proposal, we really need the assistance of Scopus' Professional Services
through Phase II and a little help beyond that with specific components.
If we are allowed to work alongside Scopus consultants through a functional
prototype stage, and have had an opportunity to get some TCL and Scopus API
training in the meantime, we should then be able to take over the project
plan and implementation. My counter proposal essentially follows this
model.
One final concern is the invoicing policy. MIT, I believe has a payment
policy of Net 30. I don't know of anyone ever having received payment
within 15 days from MIT.
After you've had a chance to read this over and review our attached counter
proposal, we should probably talk on the phone. We do appreciate the time
and effort you have put into helping us to understand what might be
involved, and we hope that we can reach a compromise that better meets our
needs in terms of our own involvement, project timeline and financial
resources.
Thanks, and looking forward to talking with you.
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