How to Choose a Software Agency

People often need help deciding what vendor or partner to work with. The below information provides guidelines of when, where and how to choose a partner or supplier.

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Selection Criteria

Score potential partners along the following dimensions for best insights into who to work with. Different classes of work will mean different expectations and weightings.

I have order red the below from what I consider the most important/highest impact attributes to the ones that still matter but are less important.

When doing your evaluation, talk about these things with prospective partners. Ask for examples, just like in a job interview. Try to ask for things you can observe in action, rather than what people think is good.

For example;

• Bad: We believe in collaboration and daily communication
• Good: In an age of remote working we think giving standups more space, and letting them be longer and less structured, gives people a chance to talk about things that would get skipped if we just rush through another agenda led meeting.

12 Point Selection Checklist

Culture fit

• Will we work well together?
• Do we have a similar idea of what quality work looks like?
• Do we have a similar view on what collaboration looks like?
• Can manage change well together?
• Do we have a matching attitude towards uncertainty and risk?
• What do we expect day-to-day from our on-team managers?

Commitment to Mission

• To what degree can the potential partner show that your mission is aligned to theirs?
• Has the prospect done similar work before?
• Do they bring domain expertise?
• How does this project or program align to their own mission and goals?
• What competing agendas exist?

Alignment of software/product development practices

• What does a typical SDLC or project look like for each of us?
• What do we think about the gaps? How will we manage them?
• Consider lifecycle stage of the product and assumptions and insights about context to approach,
• Consider risk and quality practices; how are they addressed by the prospect? Are they aligned to your approaches?

Quality systems and practices

• What quality system does the prospect use?
• How do they describe their quality systems and methods?
• How far are quality practices shifted left of the SLDC, and do they match your target practices?
• Are there multiple overlapping quality systems in play? How is quality managed in?
• Money back or remediate at own cost for bad quality work is to be expected
• Remember: Quality practices are broader than quality engineers and testers.

Consider attitudes to security and performance, as well as feature builds.

• Ask to see security policies and guides for evidence of the proposed partner’s approach,
• Ask for examples of architecture and design documents,
• Don’t only look for best practices or benchmark standards, also look for evolution and a sustained focus on improvement,
• Be realistic about the lifecycle stage you are at and what risk can you can can’t tolerate.

Post launch support

• What post launch support is offered
• What knowledge transfer/Handover work is anticipated? Is this bundled into the proposal?

Learning potential

• What opportunities does your team have to learn from working with a partner?
• What specific knowledge or tools do they potentially bring?
• What will be the trade-off for learning time and effort?
• Do you have the right leadership on the team/at the frontline to support this targeted learning

Commercial risk (vendor resilience)

• Is the vendor financially stable?
• Does the vendor have credibility in the work you are considering them for?
• Does the Vendor have the right team leader/accountable person to work with your team?
• What experience do they have that demonstrates leadership capability.
• What commercial guarantees are offered to warrant quality?

Delivery Risk

• Will we be able to manage change well together?
• Will we have a matching attitude towards managing uncertainty and risk?
• What risk appetite do you and the prospective partner have? What does the gap mean?
• What commercial terms will address delivery risk?
• Consider insurances to cover against commercial risk of a failure to deliver

Timeliness/Speed to value

• What lead time constraints are present?
• When do you need the work started by, or completed by? Can the proposal partner meet your schedule constraints?
• How will you both address schedule risk together?

Cost

• Consider the total cost of ownership.
• Are low-cost providers introducing quality risks by not supplying the right salaries, support infrastructure, and quality of labour?
• Are day rates calculated against throughput? e.g what can get delivered in X weeks is a better measure of cost/unit than cost/day.
• What is the cost to launch or reach a project goal vs day-rate?
• What flow metrics can the organisation share with you?
• What is the cost of operation post launch?
• Will complexity and shortcuts taken now have downstream costs?
• Consider depreciation, tax and other available incentives

I will follow up with posts on What Work to Share and How to Configure Teams next week for more information how to execute well.