Software Quality and Testing: A Primer
A primer on software testing for contentious and transaction lawyers. Types of testing, what it aims to do and how to use this knowledge in contracting and disputes.
How Software Is Designed and Built
How software is designed and built. Its effect on value to a customer. Waterfall, agile and hacking. Iterative design and delivery and the benefits of iteration.
Assessing Design Quality in IT Contracts
What can a customer do when drafting a contract to insulate against the risk of failure? How to implement operational measures in delivery? What can an expert do to clarify the issues for the court?
Intellectual Property – Hidden Treasure?
Why ignoring the matter of intellectual property may come back to bite you. Intellectual property can sound like an esoteric subject and one that mos people manage happily to ignore most of the time. But it has some big implications. In days of old, capital appeared to rule. Big companies owned big things and lots…
Intellectual Property, Artificial Intelligence and Outsourcing
Outsourcing contracts have long contained intellectual property clauses. How do old abuses and recent changes in technology and business influence these and what the parties should be interested in? Intellectual property (IP) has long been a difficult subject. Many have found to their cost that their rights differ from what they expect. The timing of…
I Have a Dream!
The outsourcing market is in turmoil. Customers are frequently disappointed by what they see. CIOs mark the growth of shadow IT. Suppliers have delivered savings in the past but the business feels the manacles of inappropriate service. What can be done to build a brighter future for services and value? On 28th August 1963, Dr…
Getting Multiple Suppliers to Work Together
Multi-supplier service is all the rage, together with its linking agent Service Integration and Management (SIAM). Wonderful in theory. How does one practically get multiple parties to collaborate towards a common end? It was recognised early in the development of multi-supplier models that there needed to be a unifying agent. A great deal of time…
Asking the Right Questions
The formation of a good sourcing agreement relies on clear thinking and agreement between the parties on what is to be done, why and how. The market and technology are changing so rapidly that the next agreement is likely to bear little resemblance to the last. How to make sure we ask the right questions…
Contracting for Multi-Supplier DevOps
Just when multi-supplier (also known as SIAM) contracting is starting to get under control, DevOps emerges. This article looks at the interaction of the two for the design of retained and sourced IT operations. The implications for service contracts are profound and largely un-tested. The pages of management journals have been liberally sprinkled with fads…
The Changing Demands of Retained Service Organisations
In the 1980s it was simple: there was little sourced service. Then came the bandwagon and many jumped on, keeping the thinnest retained shell. What are the challenges now as the pendulum of fashion and practice continues to swing? Trends in the Market Some projections of future events are little more than crystal-ball gazing. Others…