1xINTERNET - Vendor Selection Checklist

	B	C	D
1	Item	Description	Howto gather information
2	Expertise and Experience available	Ensure the partner has expertise in the technologies and platforms relevant to your project. If specific domain knowledge is needed it can be important to work with a partner with experience in your specific industry. This can speed up development, as this can provide valuable insights and domain knowledge.	Review their previous projects to assess the quality and relevance of their work.
3	Reputation and References	It is wise to check reviews and testimonials from previous clients to gauge satisfaction and reliability. Ask for detailed case studies that highlight their problem-solving skills and project outcomes.	Speak directly with past clients to get first hand feedback on their experience.
4	Necessary know-how available in the team	Many providers work with subcontractors and do not have the necessary know-how for project implementation in their own team.	Have the providers show you comparable solutions and speak directly to the developers who created these solutions.
5	Scalable development team setup	When working against tight deadlines or in larger software projects it can be important to expand the teams for certain time periods. Sometimes you also have to replace team members, for example because of illness or termination. This can best be done, when software is created according to standards, and all team members follow the same architectural and procedural guidelines. In many cases, too little attention is paid to standards and reusability, making it difficult for new team members to become productive. Your software vendor should at least have twice as many developers available than are required for your project.	Ask the providers to show you examples of how teams have been scaled and talk directly to the developers who were involved in the scaling.
6	Collaboration and Transparency	Verify the availability of effective communication channels and regular updates. There should be clear procedures on how projects are organized, communication is managed, meetings are executed, and changes are agreed upon. All processes should be accompanied by a suitable tool set. Also ensure the partner is transparent about their processes, timelines, and pricing.	Interview project managers and developers to verify the effectiveness of the collaboration procedures.
7	Quality assurance and post launch support	Ensure that your vendor has robust and standardized testing and quality assurance processes in place. Verify the data security measures they take to protect your sensitive information. Make sure the vendor offers appropriate support and maintenance services after the project is completed. They should have clear procedures in place that define their responsiveness to issues and ability to provide timely updates and bug fixes.	Interview members of their devops and support teams to learn about their tools and maintenance procedures.
8	Intellectual property	Make sure all relevant usage rights for all development activities are available to you and agreements are in place. Ownership, all copyright, and other rights of use in the work results should be created with you as owner or transferred to you when the software is turned over. All software creation and framework contracts should be completely standardized.	Review example framework and project contracts prior to engaging with the vendor.
9	Minimize risk and cost for the first project	It should be ensured that the selected providers can deliver the solutions you want within a sufficient timeframe and budget. Enforce the MVP approach for software creation. The vendor should first create a working base system for a fixed budget and time frame. First then the features that set your project apart from similar projects should be estimated. If a functional basic system is available, critical functions can be estimated much more easily.	For all projects, make the providers create a complete basic system with a comparable range of functions before you start estimating the costs for customizations (MVP approach).
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100