RFP’s in a Governed and Stewarded World

Most IT departments can cite examples of poor system acquisition decisions made by non-IT departments.  IT often ends up with support responsibility for these systems and finds itself blamed for poor performance and ultimate demise of same.

Previously burned IT departments typically swing to a militant gatekeeper role, feeling that they need to protect users from themselves and insulate IT from eventual blame.

Non-IT departments will claim that they own their systems, their data, or both.

The correct position is to view systems and data as organization assets to be managed for the good of the enterprise.  This can be achieved through a balance of governance and stewardship.  Governance takes the form of a cross-functional, executive-level steering committee or board that ultimately approves system decisions and business rules that have impact across the organization.  Stewardship recognizes that specific functional areas have subject matter expertise that should be relied on for process and data decisions.  Without outright ownership, the process and data stewards lead in their area of expertise with the needs of the entire organization kept in mind.

Mature IT organizations insist on Governance and Stewardship programs with participation across the enterprise and often facilitate their creation and maintenance.  This builds a partnership between IT and the rest of the organization and fosters a sense of shared success and responsibility for failure.

In my architect role I approach the RFP process as follows:

• First select the subset of responses that are acceptable to IT considering multiple criteria related to vendor maturity and vision, fit within the existing environment, technology stack, and cost
• The stewarding organization then evaluates functionality and determines the subset of responses that meet the stated requirements and would be acceptable solutions
• Responses that pass both these filters should be acceptable to all parties and then become the responses that proceed to negotiation
• Now is the time for the governance process to kick in—the pros and cons of the acceptable responses, along with the negotiated costs, are presented to the governance board along with a recommendation
• Once approved by the board, IT is directed to procure and implement the solution in partnership with the stewarding organization

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