Contract reviews are required by ISO 9001 and involve reviewing proposals and contracts in multiple stages. The stages include reviewing proposals before submission to customers and reviewing contracts before signing. The objectives are to ensure customer requirements are clarified, risks are identified, and no unclarified issues remain. Contract reviews should be implemented based on factors like a project's magnitude, complexity, and organizational complexity. Major proposals may require appointing a review team leader and scheduling reviews to manage workload and responsibilities. Internal projects also require reviews to define requirements, estimates, timelines, and manage risks.

1. Contract Review
CONTRACT REVIEWS ARE REQUIRED BY ISO 9001

2. Common Contract Situations
 Participation in a tender
 Proposal submission according to
customer’s RFP (request for proposal)
 Receipt of an order from a company’
customer
 Internal request from another department
in the organization

3. Contract Review Stages
The contract review consist of
Proposal draft review
 Reviews the proposal prior to submission to the potential customer
 This includes customer’s requirement documents, cost and resource estimates,
existing contracts or contract drafts of the supplier with partners and subcontractors
Contract draft review
 Reviews the contract draft prior to signing
 Review on the basis of the proposal and the understanding (including changes)
reached during the contract negotiation sessions.

4. Proposal Draft Review - Objectives
Make sure that the following activities have been satisfactorily carried out:
1. Customer requirements clarified and documented
2. Alternative approaches for carrying out the project examined
3. Formal aspects of the relationship between the customer and the
software firm specified
4. Development risks identified
5. Project resources and timetable adequately estimated
6. The firm’s capacity with respect to the project examined
7. The customer’s capacity to fulfill his commitments examined
8. Partner and subcontractor’s participation conditions defined
9. Protection of proprietary rights defined

5. Contract Draft Review - Objectives
Make sure that the following activities have been
satisfactorily carried out:
 No unclarified issues remain in the contract draft
 All understandings reached subsequent to the proposal
are correctly documented
 No “new” changes, additions, or omissions have
entered the contract draft

6. Implementing Contract Reviews
Factors effecting the extend
 Project magnitude
 Project technical complexity
 Degree of staff acquaintance with and experience in the project area
 Project organizational complexity
Who performs the review?
 The leader or another member of the proposal team
 The members of the proposal team
 An outside professional or company staff member who is not member of the proposal team
 A team of outside experts (ascending order, according to the complexity of the project)

7. Contract Reviews for Major Proposals
We have a major proposal when we have
 a very high project magnitude,
 a very high technical complexity of the project,
 a new professional area for the company, or
 a very high organizational complexity.
Resulting problems:
 Time pressure: only a few days for each stage
 Substantial professional work
 Team members are often very busy

8. Contract Reviews for Major Proposals
Recommendations:
 Schedule for contract review
 Teamwork to share workload
 Appoint a contract review team leader (clear responsibilities)
Review team leader responsibilities:
 Recruiting
 Distributed review tasks
 Coordinate review team
 Coordinate with proposal team
 Follow-up activities, especially conformance with the schedule
 Report finding to the proposal team

9. What about Internal Projects?
Types of internal projects:
1. Administrative or operative software to be
applied internally
2. Software packages originally intended to be
sold to the public as “off-the-shelf” packages
3. Firmware to be embedded in the company’s
products

10. What about Internal Projects?
Contract vs. “loose relationship“ problems:
1. Inadequate definition of project
requirements
2. Poor estimate of the required resources
3. Poor timetable
4. Inadequate awareness of development risks