I want to discuss the software contract - not the one we all ignore in commercial software. There are many software contracts for custom software. These are often the result of RFP (request for proposal), response to RFP, negotiations, all resulting in a contract.
What does your contract contain? There are key elements that should be found in the contract. I will list those that relate to the quality of the software and in a separate post (or series of posts) discuss how.
1. Time or dollar constraint
2. Testing requirement (this is broken further down by who, when, how much, linkage to acceptance and payment)
3. Software requirements
4. Relationship to the RFP
5. Modification responsibilities
6. Guarantee of quality (including definition of what that means)
7. Personnel assignments (including both customer and producer)
8. Signoff authority (including both customer and producer)
Gartner has an article on negotiating contracts here.
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