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Re: Auditing a SW supplier - who can do this?

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"Dr. Coffee" wrote:

> The history is that these - my employer and the SW supplier - are
> two companies that started small and grew large more or less
> together.
>
> The spec never was good (I have no idea if it ever existed) and the
> SW supplier hired MScs and PhD as staff, but none with degrees in
> SW engineering.
>
> As of today I can clearly see that the SW product
>
> - Does not do what it needs to do to be useful to us
> - Is ridiculously time-consuming to both use and maintain
> - Is hampered with all kinds of errors, flaws and blunders,
>   ranging from the merely annoying to the all ut business
>   threats (to us, the users)
>
> So my goal with the audit is to establish
>
> - Does the staff at the supplier's have basic SW skills?
> - Does managment at the supplier's know what it takes to
>   sell and support SW that is business critical to its clients?
> - Does this supplier have the necessary processes in place to
>   be a participant in the business?
>
> I am assuming the answer is 'no' to the latter questions, so
> the follow-up will then be to establish an understanding of
> how much time, work and $$$ it will take to obtain a reasonable
> state of affairs: Is it in our interest to keep developing
> this SW supplier, or should we cut them loose and get something
> else than their product.
>

It looks like you are trying to document the process your
supplier is using to create and support a software product.
It is important because it directly affects an important part of
your companies business. At this point you have no process
to audit.

> - Does the staff at the supplier's have basic SW skills?

You have answered this question in your post. They have
supplied SW already has at least some of the functionality
that you need. Ask two more questions.

"What specialized technology did the SW company have?

"What have they supplied that works?"

This will identify there strengths likely the reason they
were contracted with in the first place.

Regards,


w..
--
Walter Banks
walter@bytecraft.com
Byte Craft Limited
http://www.bytecraft.com

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Re: Auditing a SW supplier - who can do this? Walter Banks <walter@bytecraft.com> - 2011-02-07 09:10 -0500

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