A Kelly Cheng recently called to attention Whitley Secondary School’s invitation to quote that carried a requirement for Unlimited Changes. It quickly turned viral, with just about everyone saying it’s unreasonable and unfair. A Ministry of Finance purported reply to a complaint on this matter seems to agree that the requirement is unfair.
Unfair or not is often a matter of perspective. I’ll give you that the requirements were poorly worded. They should have gotten some professional help to write their requirement specification.
I imagine that Whitley Secondary School must have had a bad experience with a similar procurement in the past. They probably found themselves in some predicament, perhaps held ransom by a supplier who demanded additional charges for, presumably, what the school felt was unfair.
It’s not difficult to relate. For example, you find yourself a contractor to do some home renovation. You think you’ve agreed on a price for the whole project, then after the work is underway, the contractor tells you about all sorts of other expenses that are not included, or services assumed to be included are in fact not part of the deal. Now you’re stuck with an ongoing work and feel you’ve little choice but to pony up the money.
So with some hindsight, Whitley Secondary School sculptured a requirement specification that was bullet proof. They did not want their hands tied. They want to be able to make changes. Unlimited changes. With no additional charges. Unfortunately, they probably didn’t get a lawyer to help them write out the requirement specification. There are so many nicer ways to write such things:
“All designs must be approved by the School.”
“The Supplier shall work with the School to develop a concept. The final design must be approved by the School.”
“The Supplier shall not limit or restrict any changes or amendments requested by the School.”
“The Supplier shall make all changes or amendments which may be requested by the School.”
I’m not a lawyer, but I know there are ways to write nicely to mean the same thing. Lawyers will come up with lengthy one paragraph versions of layman’s single sentence specifications. Whitley Secondary School was just being unapologetically blunt and direct with what they want.
Haven’t you read any contracts where the terms and conditions are extremely one-sided?
Then, on the other side of it, there are ways for the interested vendors to work with such requirements. Sure, it may say unlimited, but you know reasonably that it cannot be unlimited because there is time constraint. The final deliverable needs to be, say, completed in 3 months. There is a fixed turnaround time. So work out your sums and price accordingly. I’m sure some vendors will take the risk to price more competitively. Experienced vendors will have the know-how to pluck out a magic number to use. Perhaps Kelly Cheng’s company isn’t very experienced.
Vendors can also choose not to take up this opportunity at all. It’s a free world. If they feel the requirements are unreasonable, then don’t go in. Let some other company take the job. There’s no need to complain. If the requirements were so unreasonable, then perhaps no one will bid, and the procurement will have to be re-called with more reasonable requirements.
I am not a creative designer. I work in IT, and although I’m not primarily involved in IT application systems, I know enough about it. IT is all about change. Change happens not only during development, it can also happen after development. To IT people, change is just business as usual.
Just learn to deal with change?
ps: No offence intended to creative designers.
But even in IT, there is no such thing as unlimited changes at a fixed cost. I’m not from Creative. I’m from Tech. We both write code. But would you be willing to make unlimited changes at a fixed cost?
Yes. Clearly there is a timeline and the “unlimited changes” requirement can never be fulfilled anyway. But given the fact that the vendor is legally required to perform unlimited changes even after the project as you say, will that come for free?
The document is beyond just bluntly worded. It’s poor from a legal standpoint as well. Of course you will have companies that will bid for such projects. Desperate ones. But if government ITQ documents have come to this, isn’t it an indication that the entire procurement process is broken?
I manage an entire design, development and engineering team and have been in the industry for the last 17 years.
The issue is not with change mind you.
It’s UNLIMITED change with a FIXED BUDGET.
Sure unlimited changes is possible for Client’s with unlimited budget but obviously this is not the case.
Be it creative, IT or non-IT projects, unlimited changes is unrealistic. I applaud the person who got this on viral, as all upsets are an opportunity to seek the truth.
Truth is, ridiculous expectation from a government ITQ needed some damn good lashing indeed.