The Information Services Procurement Library (ISPL) is a best practice library for the management of Information Technology related acquisition processes. It is an IT Service Management framework like ITIL, ASL, DSDM, and Cobit that can be used by managers in the Information Technology area. ISPL is applicable in both customer and supplier organizations. The key advantages of using ISPL in an Information Technology acquisition process are: a better control of costs and time-scales, better management of risks and improvement of mutual understanding between customers and suppliers.

History

ISPL was developed and published in 1999 as part of the SPRITE-S2 programme by a consortium of five European companies: EXIN and ID Research (ORDINA) from the Netherlands, FAST from Germany, SEMA from France and TIEKE from Finland. It is derived from Euromethod and based on research of about 200 real-life acquisitions.

Structure

Although ISPL is a best practice library it does not only consist of books. The structure of ISPL is displayed in figure 1. In this figure the books are represented by squares and the other tools are represented by circles. The basis is formed by four practical books, the IS Procurement Management Essentials. Additionally, a specific book addresses public procurement. Plug-ins to the IS Procurement Management Essentials are provided for specific needs and situations. Currently, three plug-ins are available for which a large market potential is foreseeable. A fourth plug-in on the acquisition of product software is currently under construction.

Follow the links below to get more information on the different parts of ISPL.

• Acquisition Process (ISPL)
• Managing Risks and Planning Deliveries (ISPL)
• Specification of Deliverables (ISPL)

External links

• ISPL Homepage
• ISPL Webtool (in development)
• Information Services Procurement Group (in Dutch)