Plinkit PCs/Tech Group 2/20/09 SOW Discussion Meeting Minutes
Troy Brown (IL), Steve Gregory (CO), Darci Hanning (OR), Jeff Humphrey (INCOLSA), Kathleen Krause-Thompson (TX), Christine Kreger (CO), Sonya Norris (MI), Bev Obert (IL), Henry Stokes (TX) - minutes by Justine Shaffner (Collaborative Coordinator)
Gregory mentioned that Enfold and Six Feet Up were rated the top two responses.
Norris thought Enfold’s proposal looked strong but was a bit concerned with the short timeline. She really likes their user testing plan. She also liked that their president was a cofounder of Plone and they are involved in Plone community. She liked Six Feet Up, especially the timeline and one of their employees’ Plone community involvement. She’s not too concerned with a one month later finish on a timeline. She wasn’t impressed with Jazkarta especially their navigation structures and is surprised that they are so expensive.
Gregory felt that anything in a 12-15 week timeline is okay. He asked if anyone had a strong opinion about completion dates. Obert said timelines often turn out to be flexible. She wasn’t impressed with A Clark as they weren’t very concerned about the importance of recurring events to us. She’s a little concerned about the 24 hour turnaround with Six Feet Up, as we won’t be able to do it. Humphrey agreed and said this was a sticking point for him. He hopes that it’s finished by July, and thinks that the 24 hour turnaround won’t help with that goal. Obert feels more confident about Enfold after our teleconference this week and thinks they’ll be able to help us move forward as new software versions come up. Krause-Thompson agreed.
Hanning joined the teleconference. She explained more on how Enfold plans to work on the state templates. They’ll have a smart, web-based interface that’ll be able to combine content with the .zexp files. Runyan is one of the two original developers of Plone and is the hardcore Zope guy, so her confidence in him is relatively high.
Shaffner realized she’d put incorrect scores for TX on the spreadsheet and corrected and resent it.
Gregory asked re GenericSetup. He knows it’s good for setting up tools but not necessarily for content objects. Hanning said she’s had issues in the past with it not working properly. She thinks if they miss a step in a software upgrade, maybe content objects won’t work correctly in later versions. She doesn’t know it well enough to comment and Gregory feels the same way. Hanning hears more about buildout than GenericSetup – it may not be used that much. Hanning thinks we may need to contract this out when we create a new state template or an update. She wondered if we want to put this question to the vendors who planned on using it.
Brown said one thing that stood out was Runyan saying we want to keep this as close to Plone as possible and wondered if GenericSetup was an add-on. Hanning thought it was a base product so most likely wouldn’t be abandoned. Brown said he was very impressed with Enfold’s answers and Hanning pointed out that Runyan adjusted well to new information – no tunnel vision. Brown asked if Hanning had used their Enfold Desktop product and she said she had and it worked like a charm, but may not be useful for us without training. What’s nifty is you update Maintain Content from your desktop and see your Plone website as files on Explorer.
Norris had to leave.
Hanning asked is anyone had strong feelings against Enfold. Gregory said he has a concern that Runyan doesn’t give the clearest, most straightforward answers. Kreger had the same feeling, she got really lost, but that could be her lack of technical expertise. Gregory values having a vendor that he can talk with plainly. Hanning said that Errington might be able to run interference with Runyan and stressed if we do go with them we’ll need to overcommunicate and not be afraid to question anything.
Gregory said he’s probing Hanning since she has the most knowledge of the Plone community. She’d be comfortable with Jazkarta, Enfold and Six Feet Up.
Brown said he’d really like to see us eliminate two or three vendors today so we can really focus on the others.
Gregory asked how everyone feels about Enfold and Six Feet Up being among the finalists. Everyone agreed. He said the third finalist would be more difficult to choose. Obert said A Clark is generally the low man.
Stokes said Krause-Thompson took training from Auel (Jazkarta) and was quite impressed, but he’s okay with not having them be a finalist. Humphrey is concerned with how much Jazkarta might try to fit us into other work they are doing (e.g. with Central MA Regional) and that this might bog down the timeline.
Brown said he’d vote for Jazkarta in the third slot and said Cignex just ranked high because of the low cost. Gregory agreed.
Hanning really liked Enfold’s approach to testing and said Cignex is outsourcing development cost which may cause some issues. She wondered if calling references on Jazkarta might allay some of Humphrey’s concerns and said if we can afford it maybe we shouldn’t value a low price so heavily. Humphrey said Cignex also asked to add some things which would just complicate our product. Stokes would prefer Jazkarta over Cignex – their price seemed a bit unrealistic and he wasn’t impressed with their proposal.
Hanning asked if we’re okay with Jazkarta, Enfold and Six Feet Up as finalists. Gregory is even though Jazkarta’s proposal rubbed him the wrong way.
Obert said should we standardize the questions so we’re asking all the references the same ones.
Hanning said if a vendor uses the same references we could see what exactly each vendor did for them and that might tell us something about their expertise. She said no one seemed to get how important CSFSin is to Plinkit.
Obert proposed asking, “What pieces of the project did they work on?”; “How willing were they to be flexible and adapt to new information from you?”; “How responsive were they to you?”; “What was the best and worst thing about working with this vendor?”; “Would you hire them again?” All agreed these will be the five questions we ask. If anything raises a red flag, any follow up will be fine.
Obert suggested sending the questions in advance. Shaffner said how about giving them the option of replying via email or phone. Hanning said she’d help Shaffner take notes during any phone conversations.
Hanning asked if we should ask Six Feet Up and Jazkarta about the GenericSetup approach that they propose. We will, but we’ll also ask about other things too.
Obert said she probably won’t be available over the next few weeks due to knee surgery but she has all confidence that we’ll make the right decision.
Gregory asked if we should set up another meeting to have another conversation after we get these recommendation and answers. Brown said let’s do the two conference calls and get the references first and then schedule another group discussion. He thinks talking to the people who’ll be doing the work is most beneficial.
Brown said we can let the bottom ones know they aren’t being considered, but he’s okay with not making them the 3/2 date which we said we’d let them know our decision by.
Obert will let the Steering Committee know what we’re doing.
Brown mentioned that there’s always room for negotiating and we may get a better deal if we start pitting them against each other a bit. He’d like to see a more definite price from Enfold.
Hanning said we could ask Enfold for a revised price – she’ll compose an email and run it past us and then Shaffner can send it on to Enfold.
Hanning said she thought Desktop would be free for Brown if he’s the only user.
Kreger mentioned Six Feet Up had in-person training included in their response and Hanning would like a price without the training included. Obert pointed out that our Tech Group may not need the training.
Hanning said since Brown’s hot on the negotiation piece maybe he can negotiate the final price when we select our winner.
Gregory asked if we should also ask about recurring events and Darci said the latest version of Plone for Artists works well with recurring events and there’s more support for it than CalendarX. Hanning felt it won’t be an issue. Jazkarta may have a slight advantage here since Auel developed it. She thinks if we did improve on Plone for Artists the vendors would contribute the code back to the Plone community. She feels it’s low risk.
Hanning is the owner of CMFSin Project and will make sure our improvements are incorporated into it.
No one had anything else to discuss so we adjourned the meeting.
To Do’s –
Hanning will compose an email to Enfold asking for a new price that doesn’t include certain features they suggested and run it past the group and then Shaffner can send it on to them.
Shaffner will email Six Feet Up and Jazkarta re setting up teleconferences to further discuss their proposals, especially with regard to GenericSetup.
Shaffner will email the references of Enfold, Six Feet Up and Jazkarta asking them –
What pieces of the project did they work on?
How willing were they to be flexible and adapt to new information from you?
How responsive were they to you?
What was the best and worst thing about working with this vendor?
Would you hire them again?
- and will let them know they can respond via email, or if they prefer she can call them (with Hanning also on the call to take notes).
Shaffner will ask Six Feet Up for a new price without any training included.
By March 2nd, if nothing changes, Shaffner will let the two bottom vendors know they are no longer in consideration and will tell the top three vendors they are still in consideration.
After the additional two teleconferences, getting responses from all the references, and getting new prices from Enfold and Six Feet Up, Shaffner will set up another group meeting to determine the winning vendor.
Obert will let the Steering Committee know what we are planning and of the potential delay.
