Software Vendors

Over the last few years, I have had the opportunity to deal with Software Vendors. Either product or service providers or both. Here are some thoughts and learnings on how to manage them.

• Procurement and Assessment. Here is the proposed model.
• Business Owner identify need/materiality
• Business owner with help of IT owner develops a Vendor compatibility matrix
• References- at least 3
• Schedule site visits/demo based on your user scenarios to understand:
• Challenges during implementation
• How good is the vendor at:
• Breaking down into smaller modules?
• Pushing back on requirements, given their expertise. There are way too many vendors who will yes you to death and deliver nothing.
• What performance metrics (time, quality) were used to evaluate deliverables?
• Challenges post-implementation/support
• Challenges with upgrades, updates, and patches
• Test Drive in a Pilot environment for a few key User Scenarios.
• Contracting: driven by Business Owner supported by IT owner.
• Contracts should be performance-based, milestones deliverables.
• Penalties for missing in timelines and quality.
• Bonus for coming in sooner and high quality.
• Understand Upgrade, Updates and Patches process.
• Need APIs to get data in and out of the system if we choose to move to a different vendor.
• Need complete transparency of development process.
• Include Source Code handover process as part of the contract. 
• Bad code === Bad Product.
• Access to source control
• Frequent code reviews.
• Testing
• Review Test Plans
• Deliver executed test plans with each functionality deliverable.
• Lessons Learned
• When bringing contract resources onsite, need a timed plan with daily updates to adjust course as needed.
• Requirements
• Must include screenshots and flows (diagrammatic representations).
• Any that says “make x work like y” is unacceptable. Need to define both current and future state.
• Break requirements into small deliverable modules. Get out of the business of 6 months or longer projects.
• Contract Management
• The payment schedule should coincide with deliverables. Not guaranteed payments without a check on deliverables.
• Review contracts annually for what we use versus don't.
• Measure yourself by how many unused features you have cut from current contracts.
• Pay attention to overage charges you have paid over last 6 months.
• Are the vendors pointing out to you when you are overpaying? If not, use it as leverage when negotiating.

Some of the points above, like Code Reviews, Test Plan reviews are very hard to pull-off. But in my experience, the smallest attempt at it pays huge dividends.

What learnings do you have when dealing with vendors? Please share in comments below.

Principles

I recently read the amazing book by Ray Dalio called Principles. I highly recommend it. I took the advice in that book and started putting together a list of my principles. I expect this to evolve as years pass. Some of them are cryptic. Get in touch with me and I will explain!

1. Focus. Time is the most scarce resource. Once spent, it will never come back.Say no. Do right things well.

2. Simplify. No shit is easy. But it need not be complicated either.

3. Better to keep moving than stand still.
    “I am moving forward with this plan until I hear otherwise.”

4. Barrels and Ammunition. Barrels take an idea from conception all the way to shipping and bring people with them. Be a Barrel.

5. Favor Action over perfection.

6. Invest in learning faster. Move fast and break things. Actively seek criticism to poke holes in your ideas.

7. Come from Data and Materiality. Remove emotions. In God I trust, all others bring data.

8. Work at the intersection of What you are Good At, Enjoy Doing, will Create Value for the World.

9. Be Effective
    Time most scarce resource
    Measure Results, Contributions not Effort
    Make Strengths Productive
    First things First
    Make decisions

10. Do not answer executive questions qualitatively. Answer with results, contributions.
Exec: “How is your hiring going?”
Bad Answer: “Good”
Good Answer: “Reviewed 10 resumes, phone screened 3, scheduled 1 onsite next week.”

11. Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose for the team

12. Push authority towards  information

13. Control comes from Competency comes from Clarity

14. It is okay to not have all the answers. You never will.

15. Two biggest barriers to good decision making; ego and blind spots.

16. Build culture to take orders in the absence of orders.
Start Cultural Revolution:
    Keep what works
    Create shocking rules
    Incorporate ppl from other cultures and insert them at high levels within org
    Make decisions that demonstrate priorities

17. You don’t have to be liked in the short run, you DO have to be liked in the long run. Don’t shy away from being unpopular. Utilize throwing temper tantrums as a mode of communication.

18. Privilege, Luck, Skill, Hard work

19. Right Decisions come from Experience comes from Wrong Decisions

20. CEOs always act on leading indicators of good news, but only act on lagging indicators of bad news. Optimists most certainly do not listen to leading indicators of bad news. That is human nature.

21. There are only two ways in which a manager can impact an employee’s output: motivation and training. Providing both are the manager’s responsibility.

22. Manager’s output = Output of his org + Output of neighboring orgs under his influence

23. Design orgs using the communication channels as the skeleton. Design it for the people, not the managers.

24. Heighten the conflict where you see it. This will help bring up real issues and resolve instead of covering up.

25. The three areas in which all great leaders must excel: clarity of thought / communication, judgment about people, and personal integrity / commitment

26. Hire for world-class strengths, rather than lack of weaknesses.

27. Pain + Reflection = Progress.