Five months after California announced details about a new vendor performance evaluation system the state wants to include in its procurement process, the Department of Technology is continuing to look for suitable IT projects to participate in a pilot of the so-called "scorecard."
California needs projects for the test that are relatively new, but none so far have advanced far enough through the state's fledgling Project Approval Lifecycle to be considered. The state eventually intends to select a diverse slate of projects that vary in size, cost and complexity for the pilot.
The Department of Technology is continuing to engage the vendor community on the development of a contractor performance evaluation system and recently met with an IT industry group to discuss it, according to one official.
Details surrounding the Contractor Performance Evaluation Scorecard continue to be of interest to the vendor community. During a December 2015 public forum, representatives from dozens of technology companies asked questions about how the system would be implemented and would be used in scoring competitive bids.
Given the time it's taking to organize the pilot, it appears the evaluation system could be implemented sometime in 2017 at the soonest, and perhaps even longer.
Chris Cruz, the Department of Technology's chief deputy director of operations, said in a local cable access TV interview on Thursday that the department is interested in convening and building out an independent "Vendor Advisory Council" as part of the state's governance structure for IT.
"I really want to look at the state's IT infrastructure right now and how we communicate with our vendor community, how we communicate with our AIOs [agency information officers], and other CIOs from the cities, counties and municipalities," Cruz said.
To that end, Cruz said the department is engaging with industry groups such as CompTIA and ITAPS to discuss how a vendor advisory council could operate. He said such a group could be used much like a think tank to help develop common processes and standards. The group could be used in a number of different areas, Cruz said.
Perhaps the issue of vendor performance evaluation would be one of them. As announced in December, the Contractor Performance Evaluation Scorecard would measure five key performance indicators (KPIs), included in language of RFPs and signed contracts. Overall ratings would look at scope, schedule, quality and timeliness. The five KPIs were winnowed down from an initial list of 225 KPIs across 32 focus areas. It's unclear if the parameters of the scoring system have been changed during the past five months.
State officials noted in December that the rating system could change based on the pilot and additional feedback from the vendor community.
