Subject: Discussion: #723 details on outsourcing

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 11:53:28 +0100

Ticket #723 is a thread coming from the paragraph that says:

>    All outsourcing must
>    be via well-defined contracts or equivalent instruments.  If any
>    functions are performed in-house, they must be clearly specified and
>    documented with well-defined deliverables, service level agreements,
>    and transparent accounting for the cost of such functions.

The two topics raised in that thread are whether the requirements need to 
be placed on both in-house and outsourced services, and whether the 
requirement for transparent accounting was overkill.

In the discussion that led to this paragraph, the point was made that a 
contract for a service usually documents deliverables, SLAs and so on, 
while it's been observed that if one does a function inhouse (whether it's 
telephone service, accounts-keeping or a full document publishing 
function), one may see that the function is either not accounted for at all 
or it is lumped into a general lump sum such as "overhead". Then it's hard 
to be transparent, since it's not documented what was done, whether it 
fulfilled requirements, or what it cost.

My worry is more in the direction of "state principles, not mechanisms" - 
that the requirement here is specifying too much about how to do these 
things, rather than why it should be a certain way.

So while my first instinct is to suggest that this is "no change needed", 
I'm instead sending this out with "discussion".....

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From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 12:47:56 +0100

Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:
> The two topics raised in that thread are whether the requirements need 
> to be placed on both in-house and outsourced services, and whether the 
> while it's been observed that if one does a function inhouse (whether 
> it's telephone service, accounts-keeping or a full document publishing 
> function), one may see that the function is either not accounted for at 
> all or it is lumped into a general lump sum such as "overhead". Then 
> it's hard to be transparent, since it's not documented what was done, 
> whether it fulfilled requirements, or what it cost.
> 
> My worry is more in the direction of "state principles, not mechanisms" 
> - that the requirement here is specifying too much about how to do these 
> So while my first instinct is to suggest that this is "no change 
> needed", I'm instead sending this out with "discussion".....

Well, I go for "no change" as in Bert's note on the same ticket.
It's all too easy to fall in the trap of hiding hard-to-classify
expenses under "general," and it's a mistake that comes back to
hurt you later. "Transparent accounting" is a principle worth stating.

     Brian