This briefing is for customers who want to understand and use Responsiv Contracts
Introduction
Responsiv Consulting services are here to help you deliver your projects by providing specialist expertise and experience.
We use our experience to support your strategic planning, solution identification, and all aspects of delivery. Responsiv Consulting then hand over to our support and managed service team to ensure a sustainable and successful project and beyond.
Our consulting engagements are structured to be flexible toward project delivery, as well as commercially advantageous to our customers.
Why We Use Contracts
Contracts are used to record details of an agreement between two or more parties. Most agreements detail how value will be exchanged to benefit each party, as well as the nature of the value.
In this case, the buyer expects to receive value in the form of skilled and capable consultants in units of hours rounded to full days (Time and Materials), or in the form of a desired outcome (Fixed Price). In both cases the contract dictates the quality and time aspects of the value.
In return, Responsiv expects financial reward, but may also be interested in references and shared investment.
The contract is used to record the nature of the value to each party, and their responsibilities.
Many contracts include the same terms and conditions. These are standard statements that help define how the contract is to be interpreted and how disagreements are handled.
Responsiv work hard to assure that our terms and conditions are transparent, and that they are balanced and fair. Each contract refers to appropriate standard terms and conditions to avoid repeating them in each contract.
Buying Services
When buying a car, it is possible to physically inspect the product to determine the quality and the value for money.
Physical products can be physically inspected to establish the quality and the value for money. Services cannot be inspected in the same way and rely more heavily on reputation and contractual protection.
Recollections vary. This means that without agreed evidence the parties may recall different scope or quality and can be disappointed by the outcome. The contract must specify the expectation, including the time, quality, and scope of the agreement.
The Contract Defines Acceptance Criteria
Services cannot be inspected in the same way as physical products.
You may look at previous work, or recommendations, but you get what you get. The contract must specify whether what you get is good enough.
This means that the agreement must protect the buyer from poor quality, and the seller from demands that extend the scope and are not included in the price.
The seller (Responsiv) has already paid for the consulting services before the buyer sees the result. This means that the contract must define acceptance criteria in a way that is objective and not open to interpretation.
The contract must contain particular information
A Responsiv consulting contract includes several sections that provide information about the terms of the contract, when and what the contract is expected to deliver, and how the buyer will judge acceptability of deliverables.
Heads of terms
The first section of the contract identifies the parties and the terms under which the contact will operate. The terms will vary depending on the type of agreement, which is chosen to best match the project situation.
Terms and Conditions
Responsiv standard terms and conditions are referenced by our contracts and have been developed to protect all parties in our contracts. They document how the contract can be terminated and “standard” considerations that apply to every contract.
Deliverables
This section details what will be delivered by the contract in terms of scope, quality, and effort expected. The section may be introduced with an overview of the project to provide a context for the deliverables. Each deliverable is catalogued, with a defined scope, and acceptance criteria.
Delivery schedule
The delivery schedule specifies when deliverables are expected to be delivered.
Commercial
The commercial section details payments and if appropriate, the invoicing schedule for those services.
Understanding the contract price
Responsiv price contracts using a “work breakdown structure”, which is a tree that describes what is to be done in a way that can be rolled up to a single price.
The record of what was included in the price also helps to identify risky or expensive components that can be cut if the budget is exceeded. For fixed price contracts a risk margin is added to compensate Responsiv for taking the additional risk, and to help offset any unexpected issues that may arise.
Project Delivery Contracts
Responsiv delivers consulting services under the control of three different contract types. Each type provides a degree of flexibility that helps to manage risk and place responsibilities and rewards where they belong.
Brief Overview
Time and Materials
Responsibility for deliverables and project management are both with the customer.
T&M contracts might be used to rent a van for the day. The rental agent is responsible for providing the vehicle – not the fuel, or driving. If a day is not enough; you pay for additional time
We use Time and Materials contracts when customers want to control delivery and take full responsibility for all deliverables. They literally purchase “time” from our consultants and pay for “materials” in the form of pre-built software and expenses.
These contracts are useful when the requirements (scope and quality) are not available or change frequently, or when the project has dependencies that are critical to success but cannot be controlled by Responsiv.
Fixed Price
We use fixed price contracts to outsource responsibility for deliverables and project management. This contract style allows you to purchase an “outcome”, which is defined as a list of “deliverables”. Each deliverable has scope, quality, and acceptance criteria attached.
A fixed price contract might be used to move a piano. The piano mover is responsible for the piano and its state during the move to a new location; regardless of the effort and equipment needed
These contracts are only possible when the requirements are well known and can be defined in terms of requirements (quality and scope), and dependencies are controlled by Responsiv.
Hybrid
Hybrid contracts include milestones that are either fixed price or time and materials to change the balance of responsibility throughout the project. Each milestone is specified as T&M or FP.
Hybrid contracts for moving a piano might have two parts to allowe the buyer to provide the transport. The piano mover is responsible for the piano and its state, and for moving it to the new location – regardless of the effort, but the equipment is provided by the buyer.
Pre-eminence of Contract
Once a contract is agreed, it becomes the only agreement and is not affected by any written or verbal statements made before or after the agreement.
This means that conversations, written or spoken, and expectations that are not reflected in the contract are superseded by the contract, which terminates pre-contract communications.
Responsiv policy is that we do not perform work without an agreement and valid purchase order. Companies that do not use purchase orders must be authorised by the Responsiv COO.
To maintain control, any changes to the contract must be documented and agreed. We do this using a Change Request and this requirement is documented in the original agreement.
Responsiv uses the term “agreement” to refer to contracts of all kinds. We use proposals, fixed price statements of work, and time and material statements of work.
Types of Contracts
Contracts record the details of a relationship and provide an objective way to measure success.
Different contracts are used to assure that rewards, liabilities, responsibilities, risks, and control are linked and balanced so that control is paired with responsibility, and rewards are paired with liability.
Change Request
Change Requests are used to alter the terms of any type of contract, including the budget, duration, expiry date, and deliverable scope.
Responsiv exclusively uses change requests to change the contract. This means that we do not change the scope during a conversation, email exchange, or casual statement. It means that our developers are not authorised to agree changes to the project.
Our change request template allows us to change the price of a contract and increase or reduce the scope, the expiry dates, and the quality. We use the same contract to terminate the contract.
We expect the CR to be signed by the project sponsor who signed the original contract.
Time and Materials
The contract used for time and material (T&M) consulting engagements is often referred to as an “Assistance” contract and is recorded on a document known as a “Statement of Work” (SOW). The SOW details price, terms, duration, and scope of the agreement as well as the payment schedule.
Time and Material (T&M) contracts are limited by time alone and are used when we are assisting you to deliver a project that you are managing and for which you have responsibility. The contract may list deliverables to help understanding of the scope of assistance, however the contract is deemed completed when the time and material expires whether or not the deliverables are completed.
Material can include subsistence expenses and pre-existing software that is provided to accelerate or reduce delivery risk on the project.
Time is billed in hours with a minimum billing per day. Minimum billing is used to prevent requests from blocking consultants from working on projects that take the whole day.
These contracts are useful when requirements are unknown, Responsiv has limited control over the risks, or when the acceptance criteria cannot be defined. It allows you to use Responsiv skills and delivery ability without Responsiv having to price for risks that either cannot be quantified or that cannot be suitably controlled.
Responsiv invoice T&M contracts monthly in arrears for time used and expenses. We bill any software or other project asset material on contract signing unless otherwise agreed.
Fixed Price (Outcome)
The contract used for fixed price (FP) consulting engagements is often referred to as an “Outcome”, or “Delivery” contract and is recorded on a document known as a “Statement of Work” (SOW). A fixed-price SOW details price, terms, duration, and scope of the agreement as well as the payment schedule.
Responsiv will not agree to a fixed price contract unless we can
- Measure
The contract must define an objective set of measures to determine that we have achieved the scope, acceptance criteria, and quality required by the project.
Objective in this context means that the deliverable scope, quality, and function are predefined such that no subjective decision can undermine determination of acceptance.
- Control
Responsiv must have oversight and control of all barriers to delivery. This includes such things as access to development environments, your skilled resources, and decisions.
Milestones must be defined to allow Responsiv to manage cashflow and reasonably be paid for work completed.
- Influence
If Responsiv does not control a dependency, then the contract must include terms that satisfactorily mitigate all risks to delivery of each milestone.
Fixed price contracts are useful when requirements and acceptance criteria are known and can be defined, and Responsiv has full control over the risks.
Responsiv invoice FP contracts when each milestone is accepted.
Fixed Price projects place the risk of project failure with Responsiv.
We formulate the contract to reduce the risk and then assess the remaining financial risk. Some risks are high for Responsiv, and excessively increase the price. The contract price can be reduced by ring-fencing those risks and leaving them with you. We use Hybrid contracts to mix fixed price and time and material parts.
Hybrid (Fixed and Flex)
We use a hybrid contract that combines fixed price and time and materials to reduce the cost of the contract by placing the risk for specific parts of the project back with the customer.
This contract is often used when requirements are not clear, or when dependencies are out of the control of Responsiv.
The contract must be clear and is unlikely to be as flexible as an agile project delivery might need. This is because:
- Contracts and sponsor expectations are not agile
- People struggle to change their expectations quickly
- Contracts take time to change and construct
- Project sponsors expect the project to deliver something tangible for the investment
Responsiv use Hybrid contracts to better align the contract to agile projects.
Project Support Contracts
Project completion is not the end of the story for a project. The project must now move into the production environment and be supported during its operational life. Responsiv provides packages to ensure that you are properly supported at each stage.
Remote support agreements are pre-defined to simplify their use. They can be used to augment the custom contracts to provide a fully rounded service.
Moving to Production
When newly developed software moves into production it has already been tested for foreseeable problems and accepted by the users. In many cases the software is then subjected to the reality of the production environment, which often exposes new problems that must be addressed and are time critical.
Responsiv Assist Hypercare Support
Responsiv Assist Hypercare Support is offered to customers that use Responsiv consulting services. It allows Responsiv to provide remote consulting support as needed for a period of months after the end of a project.
This means that when the project team is disbanded you can still access their unique knowledge to the project and their skills and experience to fix any problems that emerge after the project has entered production and completed. You will have access to Responsiv developers and project staff, as well as our regular support team after the project has finished.
Business as Usual
Once a project has settled into the production environment you will need to maintain the infrastructure and developed software during its operational life. Responsiv offer two products that can be used to manage operational support risks.
Responsiv Unity Advanced Support
Responsiv Unity Advanced support agreements allow you to connect your Responsiv Unity installation directly to the Responsiv service desk.
This means that situations detected in the running Responsiv Unity platform cause service request tickets to be raised directly in the Responsiv Service Desk, day, or night. The agreement includes an allowance to support or perform patches and upgrades to your platform, and an allowance of Responsiv Assist Flex Support credits to help you through any unexpected support situations.
Responsiv Assist Flex Support agreement
Responsiv Assist Flex Support agreements allow you to purchase credits that can be used to request remote support for developers, administrators, designers, architects, and business managers. Responsiv will review designs and other documentation, research problems and provide code-snippets, and work with your team to resolve problems.
Credits can be refreshed at any time, and the arrangement means that work is not delayed by contract work and other barriers.
End of Life Support
When IBM announces a version of its software is “end of support” or “end of life” the cost of support increases and the value provided reduces. After end of support the product version will no longer be patched but an upgrade may be available. Responsiv provides limited support for IBM Middleware products that have reached “end of support”.
Responsiv Assist Extended Support
Responsiv Assist Extended Support agreements allow you to purchase incident response support for IBM products that have reached the end of support or end of life and no longer economically supported by IBM. Responsiv will review the situation and discuss any limitations to our ability to support your products, for example we cannot provide patches, but we can provide break-fix support and alternate facilities to be used in the event that we cannot recover your installation.
Mentoring
At Responsiv we believe that mentoring is a great way to share knowledge and experience while focusing on a common objective. We provide mentoring in several different formats using time and materials (T&M) contracts.
Casual Mentoring
Casual Mentoring is the transfer of information on a casual basis. In this scenario an inexperienced practitioner who is familiar with the technology and has completed the standard education, works alongside an expert, and takes notes of the decisions and actions, asking detailed questions, and receiving proactive direction from the expert.
There is no formal handover and no formal time put aside for the exercise. It is expected that the impact does not exceed 30% of the experienced person’s time. The team should have a ratio of one experienced to no more than two inexperienced practitioners.
Formal Mentoring
Formal Mentoring is the transfer of information on a specific basis. In this scenario an inexperienced practitioner who is familiar with the technology and has completed the standard education, works alongside an expert, and watches and takes notes while Responsiv delivers.
The inexperienced person works with the mentor to develop a second solution together, and finally the mentee is watched by the mentor.
There is no formal handover and no formal time put aside for the exercise. It is expected that the impact does not exceed 50% of the experienced person’s time. The team should have a ratio of one experienced to no more than two inexperienced practitioners.
Project Mentoring
Project mentoring is when the team sets out together to learn a new technology. In this case the mentoring follows the formal approach with three stages:
- Responsiv delivers the first project, and you take notes and ask questions
- We work together to deliver the second project
- You deliver the third project with Responsiv overseeing and providing feedback.
Projects that need to mentor and deliver outcomes are split into a velocity workstream and a mentoring workstream to allow practitioners to properly focus on delivery versus mentoring.
Responsiv
Responsiv is a business technology company that specialises in connecting people, systems, and businesses. We help companies to understand the problem and simplify the solution. Our experience is extensive, including IoT, Supply chain transparency, Open Banking APIs, data replication, and business process automation.
Responsiv is relied upon by international banks, emergency services, health services, local councils, and government agencies. Our reputation for delivery speaks for our understanding of the problems and how to solve them.
We work with commercial businesses of all sizes. The nature of enterprise integration means that we work with your partners and your technologies, including Microsoft, Opensource, IBM, HP, your own legacy systems, and many others.
We provide professional services, cloud automation services, and remote development and managed services from our Bracknell offices.