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Acceptance Criteria and Procurement Planning Strategies
Project Management · Chapter 3: Building a Comprehensive Project PlanSection 3.8 · lesson 22 of 7314 min · free with a free account
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In this lesson
Writing checkable acceptance criteria and planning what to buy and when.
- Write acceptance criteria that are specific, testable, unambiguous, pass or fail, measured, and tied to a verification method
- Describe an acceptance procedure covering reviewers, methods, review window, rejection records, and sign-off
- Compare make and buy options on cost, break-even quantity, capability, capacity, control, risk, and schedule
- Calculate the latest procurement start date by counting back from the need date
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Transcript
Everything said in the video, section by section (1,826 words). Read along, or search it.
Opening Question
One Kiosk, Two Stopwatch Readings
The Marrowfield Arts Center has a new self-service ticket kiosk in its lobby, and today is its acceptance test. The contract says: the kiosk prints a ticket within 10 seconds. Omar, the supplier's technician, times it at about 8 seconds. Dana Reyes, the project manager, times the same purchase at 13. Omar starts his stopwatch when payment is approved, and stops when printing begins. Dana starts when a patron touches Pay, and stops when the ticket leaves the slot. Both read the same sentence honestly. So did the kiosk pass? And what should the sentence have said?
Definition
Conditions the Accepting Party Agrees To
Acceptance criteria are the conditions a deliverable must meet before the accepting party agrees it's complete, and satisfies what was asked. They're written during planning, not at the end, because a standard invented after the work is done, gets argued over by people who already know the result. They come from two earlier products. The scope statement lists a deliverable, like a ticket kiosk in the lobby. A requirement says what it must do: sell a ticket without staff help. The criterion turns that requirement into a condition someone can check. A criterion with no requirement behind it is an unrequested extra, or a sign of a missing requirement. A requirement with no criterion is a promise nobody can confirm.
Six Properties
What Makes a Criterion Usable
Six properties separate a usable criterion from a hopeful one. Specific: it names the exact deliverable and the exact behavior being judged. Testable: an inspection, measurement or trial can produce evidence. Unambiguous: two competent readers who haven't conferred take the same meaning. Pass or fail: partly met means undecided. It carries a measure, the quantity and threshold that decide pass from fail. And it names a verification method: who checks, with what instrument, under what conditions. The properties depend on each other. A threshold with no method invites a fight about how the number was obtained. That's exactly what happened at the kiosk. And the accepting party, the role with authority to say yes, sits right beside each criterion.
Examples
Three Criteria a Stranger Could Check
Here are three criteria from the center's launch, each ending in a number a stranger could check. Online ticket page: a customer can buy a ticket without staff help. Ten of ten scripted test purchases complete in five screens or fewer, on a phone and a laptop. Printed program board: every show and price matches the signed price list. Zero mismatches, and every line readable from a two-meter mark. Staff quick-reference guide: a staff member who's never seen it processes a sale with the guide alone, in four minutes or less, asking for help no more than once. That last one judges a guide by a newcomer, because a guide judged by its author always seems clear. Thresholds come from the requirement, not from what the builder already knows it can hit. A threshold set for the builder's comfort doesn't measure the owner's need.
Rewriting Weak Criteria
From Sounds Fine to Measurable
Weak criteria usually start as phrases that sound fine in a meeting. The page responds quickly becomes: a search on the center's standard tablet returns results in two seconds or less, in at least 19 of 20 timed trials. Nineteen of twenty tolerates the odd slow result, without hiding a pattern. The board looks professional becomes: only the two approved typefaces and the approved logo, with zero deviations from the one-page style sheet. Staff are trained becomes: all six counter staff attend the 45-minute session, and each correctly processes three of three practice sales. Each rewrite forces a decision that had been postponed, while changing it still costs a conversation, not rework. But don't overshoot. A criterion more precise than the need can reject a deliverable that serves it.
Where Criteria Live
WBS Dictionary and Quality Metrics
Criteria live in two places. The WBS dictionary entry for the work package that makes the deliverable, so the worker sees the target when work begins, not at handover. And they link to quality metrics. A metric defines what is measured and how, like response time in seconds. A criterion applies a threshold on a metric, to one deliverable, at one handover. It borrows the metric's definition, so the same measurement is never defined twice.
Acceptance Procedure
Who Reviews, How, and Who Signs
The acceptance procedure is the agreed sequence for presenting, examining, and accepting or rejecting a deliverable. It answers five questions. Who reviews? People competent to run the methods, and independent enough from the builder to report a failure. They examine and report; the accepting party decides. How? The methods in order, with the test environment and data, so a second person could reproduce the result. How long? The review window is the days after delivery within which the accepting party must respond. If it passes in silence, does silence count as acceptance? That's a contract term, for counsel. How is rejection recorded? A written entry: the criterion missed, the evidence, the date, the observer, and the correction required. And who signs? Sign-off is a recorded statement by a named authority. The plan names a role, so one person's absence can't stall the project.
Quick Check
Which Lobby Display Draft Is Checkable
Quick check. Three drafts for the lobby display. Which one could two strangers check, and get the same answer? Pause, and decide. The second. It names a position, a count, and a pass condition, so the check produces evidence. Bright, clear and easy have no measure, and a readable size still leaves each reader to decide what readable means.
Make or Buy
Six Factors From Cost to Schedule
Planning also decides what to buy. Make-or-buy analysis compares producing an item yourself with buying it from an outside seller. Six factors are compared. Cost: the total for the whole quantity, one-time and repeating. Capability: do we have the skills and tools? Capacity: do we have the time and people free when it's needed? A team can be fully capable and still have no capacity. Control: can we direct design, quality and changes? Risk: what could go wrong, and who bears it? Buying moves some risk, but moving risk isn't removing it. And schedule: can it be ready by the need date?
Worked Example
Forty Display Stands and Break-Even
The center needs forty identical wooden display stands. Sam's workshop could make them: a one-time setup of $600 for tools and a jig. Then each stand needs $22 of materials, and 3 hours of labor at $18 an hour, which is $54. That's $76 per stand. Forty stands at 76 is $3,040, plus the setup: $3,640 to make. A supplier quotes $85 per stand, plus one $120 delivery charge. Forty times 85 is 3,400, plus 120: $3,520 to buy. Buying is cheaper by $120. The break-even quantity is where the totals match: the difference in fixed charges, 480, divided by the saving per stand from making, 9. About 53 stands. Below that, buying is cheaper on cost alone. Above it, making is. But the gap is small. With a quarter-hour less labor per stand, making saves 180, and comes out 60 cheaper. And the other factors can reverse a close result.
Quick Check
Sixty Stands Tips the Balance
Quick check. Same quotes, but the center now needs sixty stands. On cost alone, which option is cheaper? Pause, and decide. Making. Six hundred plus sixty times seventy-six is five thousand one hundred sixty. Buying is sixty times eighty-five plus one hundred twenty: five thousand two hundred twenty. Sixty is past the break-even of about fifty-three, so the nine-dollar saving per stand now outweighs the bigger setup.
Applying the Factors
Why the Kiosk Was Bought
The same analysis decided the kiosk itself. The center's part-time volunteer technician could have built the software, and his time carried no charge. But he was committed to the box-office system in those same weeks: a capacity problem. And nobody else could maintain custom software: capability and control. So Dana bought, accepting a higher cash cost and dependence on one supplier, for a firm delivery date and a support arrangement. Should every factor be priced? One view: express it all in money, or preference sneaks in. The other: some things, like independence from one seller, can't be honestly priced. How accurate such estimates are is empirical. How much weight control deserves for its own sake is a question of values.
Procurement Plan
What It Covers From Need to Closing
Procurement is acquiring goods or services from outside. The procurement management plan says how it will be done, from deciding what to buy to closing the agreements. It covers what is to be bought, with quantities and specifications; the approach for finding and comparing sellers; and the roles, including who may sign. Then lead times, the elapsed time of each step; the standard documents the organization already uses; and constraints, like spending ceilings, approval thresholds, and legal rules for counsel. It names the documents to expect: requests for information, quotation and proposal, a statement of work, and the contract. They're developed later in the course.
Source Selection
Weighted Criteria Set Before Offers Arrive
Source-selection criteria are the factors, set in advance, for comparing sellers' offers. Each gets a weight, usually totaling 100. Why in advance? Once offers arrive, evaluators can see who's cheapest or familiar, and weights chosen then can drift, consciously or not, toward a favorite. For the stands: meeting the specification, 30. Price, 25. Delivery reliability, 20. Warranty and support, 15. Relevant past work, 10. Weights should follow the project's priorities. If the biggest threat is a fixed opening date, rating delivery below price contradicts it. Some requirements work better as a pass or fail screen, like holding a required license. And remember: source-selection criteria judge promises before award; acceptance criteria judge the delivered work.
Timing
Counting Back From the Need Date
Finally, timing. The need date is when a purchased item must be accepted and ready. The latest procurement start date is the last day you can begin and still make it. Work backward through five stages: solicitation, selection, contracting, delivery, and acceptance. With a need date of June 1st, the lead times are 14, 10, 12, 30 and 5 days: 71 days in all. Count back: May's 31 days reach May 1st, April's 30 reach April 1st, and 10 more reach March 22nd. That's the latest start. Check forward: each stage starts the day the last one ends, and acceptance ends on June 1st. Use calendar days, converting any working-day quotes. Starting later makes the date unreachable, day for day. And a 10-day buffer would move the start to March 12th.
Back to the Kiosk
Start, Stop, Count, and Limit Written Down
Back to the kiosk. Omar and Dana each read the ten seconds honestly. The criterion had a threshold, but no verification method. Dana rewrites it. Timed by stopwatch, from a patron touching Pay until the ticket fully leaves the slot, at least nine of ten test purchases finish in twelve seconds or less. The supplier wouldn't sign ten seconds on the patron's definition, so Dana accepted twelve, after a week of negotiation. Now the start, the stop, the count and the limit are all written down. The next test has one answer.
Key Takeaways
Criteria, Procedure, Make or Buy, Dates
To recap. Every acceptance criterion needs a measure with a threshold, and a verification method. The acceptance procedure settles who reviews, how, how long, how rejections are recorded, and who signs. Make or buy weighs cost alongside capability, capacity, control, risk and schedule. And the latest procurement start date is found by counting back from the need date.
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Project Management (Business 230) is a self-paced online course of 73 video lessons in 12 chapters, from starting and defining a project to planning, budgets, scheduling tools, proposals, contracts, execution, monitoring, closure, teams and certification. It carries a NCCRS credit recommendation for 3 semester credits.
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