Related Guidance And Best Practices

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GUIDANCE FOR PURCHASING IT PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

The State Procurement Office (SPO) provides a web-based State of Hawaii Procurement Wizard.
It is the official guide to the Executive Branch and other jurisdictions on the procurement process for goods, services, and construction.

SPO STATEWIDE PRICE AND VENDOR LISTS

The SPO procures and manages price list and vendor list contracts on behalf of Executive branch agencies, and any of the other twenty chief procurement officer (CPO) jurisdictions, including the Judiciary and the Legislative branches and the counties that commit to participate in the contracts issued by the SPO.

Participating jurisdictions and agencies benefit by obtaining price discounts and other leveraged concessions through volume purchases. In addition there are the efficiency savings – the administrative, procurement and contract management realized by each agency or jurisdiction, rather than having to solicit individual contracts, resulting in multiple contracts for the same commodity or service. Instead these processes are managed by the SPO, and all participating jurisdictions and agencies are the beneficiaries of cooperative purchasing.

The following is a list of IT-related price and vendor lists managed by SPO:

  • Administrative Correspondence and Business Process Management System
  • Internet Portal Manager and Service Provider
  • NASPO ValuePoint Cloud Solutions
  • NASPO Valuepoint Computer Equipment Including Related Peripherals & Services
  • NASPO ValuePoint Copiers, Printers & Related Devices
  • NASPO ValuePoint Data Communications Products & Services
  • NASPO Valuepoint Software Value Added Reseller
  • NASPO ValuePoint Wireless Communication & Equipment
  • Network and Telecommunications Services, Furnish, Deliver, Install, and Manage
  • Open Data Portal Platform – Optional Services

For more information on the lists above, see Price & Vendor List Contracts

HIEPRO

HIePRO is required for small purchase requests for quotes for goods, services and construction from $15,000 and above pursuant to HRS Chapter 103D, for the executive branch, the Judiciary and Hawaii Health Systems Corporation. Some agencies are also using HIePRO for Invitation for Bids. The State Procurement Office (SPO) conducts all solicitations on HIePRO including Invitation for Bids (IFBs) and Requests for Proposals (RFPs).

GSA IT SCHEDULE 70

The GSA (General Services Administration) IT Schedule 70, General Purpose Commercial Information Technology Equipment, Software, and Services, may be used for IT SERVICES ONLY. More information and procedures to use the GSA IT Schedule 70 is available in this document.

Departments are not permitted to purchase from a GSA contract if there is another active SPO statewide contract for that service. If a department believes it can negotiate better value using the GSA contract, it must include an analysis and justification in written notification to the attention of the CIO. The CIO may negotiate with existing statewide contractors to “meet or beat” the other contract terms, if possible. If CIO determines that“best value” for a department can only be obtained through the GSA contract, it may recommend approval, in writing, on a case by case basis.

PROJECT GENERAL GUIDELINES

  1. Each project should have well defined tenants
    1. Collaboration
    2. Prepare for in-flight requirements changes
    3. Ensure that Statements of Work and project deliverables are considered as firm commitments
    4. Satisfy the project sponsors
  2. Define project metrics and define a measure for success based on these metrics
  3. Provide for an Organizational Change Management (OCM) framework to deal with the human aspects of change management
  4. Rethink processes before launching a project (Business Processing Reengineering)
  5. Identify past contract and vendor management issues and address them
  6. Identify and address lack of IT resources and skill sets
  7. Perform a Fit-Gap analysis to identify how current or new software meets business requirements
  8. Provide management training for technical, human interaction, and conceptual skills

IT RELATED RFP BEST PRACTICES

This guideline provides recommended Best Practices for IT related Requests for Proposals.

  1. Define the results required to address the business problem
  2. Define what a successful outcome looks like
  3. Contact ETS to discuss business problem and technical approach
  4. Contact other State of Hawaii departments and other States to learn from their approaches and experiences
  5. Requirements should be unambiguous, meaningful, measurable, and complete.
  6. Include provisions for evolving requirements and environment.
    1. Provide for processes to deal with a rapidly changing technology base.
  7. Requirements should not include the solution or any unnecessary characteristics.
  8. Include the following requirements for IT related RFPs
    1. Services
    2. Development/customization
    3. Deliverables
      1. List
      2. Metrics for accepting deliverables
    4. Support
      1. Documentation
      2. Training
        1. Knowledge transfer to government staff
      3. Service Level Agreement (SLA)
  9. RFP evaluation panel
    1. Score point matrix based on requirements
    2. Each panelist should surface one positive and one negative for each RFP for group discussion

RFP GUIDELINES BASED ON STATE PROCUREMENT OFFICE (SPO) REQUIREMENTS

See the State Procurement Office’s website for the Competitive Sealed Proposal (RFP) Process

GUIDELINES FOR CONTRACTING WITH IT VENDORS

Based on “Best Practices for Contracting with Software and System Vendors” by Rich Wyde, Esq.

  1. Define software ownership or license rights
  2. Define acceptance testing
    1. Modular testing
    2. System testing including response time requirements
    3. Interoperability testing
  3. Only pay for operational and acceptable deliverables
  4. Define pricing/uplift for contract and option years.
  5. Define objective specifications
  6. Identify technical standards, statutes, and business processes that must be addressed by an acceptable system delivery.
  7. If required, define the conversion of legacy data as a separate deliverable.
  8. Define system availability requirements.
  9. Acceptance and warranty standards should not include hedges.
    1. Define remedies for breach of warranty
  10. Systems must be tested for security issues by ETS prior to delivery acceptance.
    1. The software must be free of “backdoor” access.
  11. Define a firm schedule for vendor deliverables and other obligations.
  12. Define terms of maintenance services
    1. Define what constitutes minor and major modifications
  13. Describe possible remedies
    1. Liquidated damages
    2. Performance bonds
    3. Withholding payments
    4. Setoff
    5. Free hardware for performance failures
    6. Termination for default
    7. Termination for convenience
    8. Software Escrow
    9. Guarantee
    10. Letter of Credit
  14. Determine special provisions such as installation location environmental requirements.
  15. Negotiate with knowledge of the current spend guidance from the Governor, Director of Finance, and State CIO.
    1. Consult with ETS for current status of enterprise licensing and other product acquisition agreements.

CONTACT INFORMATION

The contact information in this document is current as of October 2017.

Spend requests and budget requests (Form A) should be emailed to: [email protected]

Telecommunications Requests (ICSD-001) should be emailed to: [email protected]