WIPO Regional Seminar
Intellectual Property, Software and E-Health
Case Study:
Software Licensing Experience in UNAIDS
Kigali, Rwanda
4 June 2010
Prepared by:
S. NEWELL
UNAIDS
March 24, 2016
First, some introductions…
UNAIDS
March 24, 2016
About me…
• My name is Sima Newell
• Currently, I am the head of IT at UNAIDS
Chief, Technology Services Division
• I am based in Geneva, Switzerland
• I am an electrical engineer by training
Master of Engineering from McGill University, Montreal Canada
• I have been at UNAIDS for nearly 6 years in this position
• Prior to that, I worked at WHO (5 years), the ILO & the UN secretariat
• Before that, I worked in a .com company for several years in Canada
UNAIDS
March 24, 2016
About IT in UNAIDS
• UNAIDS is a joint, cosponsored programme of the UN (est. 1996)
• We have a global secretariat, with presence in about 90 countries
• We have over 900 staff world wide
• When I joined UNAIDS in 2004, we had no IT support
in our countries, or in our regional support teams
• We have since rolled out global services to all regional support teams
and nearly all our countries:
 Improved connectivity
 Global e-mail addresses
 Voice & video conferencing, where practicable
 Re-designed, collaborative intranet
 Global data systems
 Enterprise resource planning
UNAIDS
March 24, 2016
To get through it, we have had to consistently
Manage for the future
UNAIDS
March 24, 2016
1
Why start with
the future?
UNAIDS
March 24, 2016
2
Learning from
the past
3
Putting things
into practice
1
Why start with
the future?
UNAIDS
March 24, 2016
2
Learning from
the past
3
Putting things
into practice
First, because things change
3yrs
Over time:
• Needs for the product evolve
• Software and technology progress
• People / project owners change
• The environment and priorities shift
What’s appropriate now just won’t be right in a few short years.
UNAIDS
March 24, 2016
P.S. apologies to IP owners for shameless copying of two images from Google images to make my point
Second, because costs can skyrocket
Rule of thumb:
• 60 to 80% of costs are
incurred
after
the first release
(version 1.0)
of any software
UNAIDS
March 24, 2016
Third, because success
breads great ideas
A successful product brings:
• Buy-in
• Innovation for new/increased use
• Use of the system and/or data in
unforeseen ways
UNAIDS
March 24, 2016
Most of my time is spent
managing for the future
For software licensing, this means asking key questions:
Sourcing:
• Can I buy off-the-shelf, or do we need a custom solution?
• Are open source solutions viable and appropriate?
Sustainability:
• What staff and resources will I need to maintain my system?
• Are there license renewal costs?
• Is the company reputable / there for the long haul?
Ownership:
• How critical is the information in the system?
• Who needs to own the system? The information?
• How easily will I be able to change systems / vendors later?
• How much risk is there if the vendor does not deliver as expected?
UNAIDS
March 24, 2016
A success story:
UNAIDS intranet redesign
•
•
Old system was 10+ years old, hard to maintain, hard to add content
With strategy of going global, we needed something meaningful to country staff
Phase 1: behind the scenes:
•
•
•
We assessed different options and technologies and tried an open source tool
Our staff learned and became familiar with the tool and liked what they saw
We didn’t have the time or resources to launch the new tool and a whole new
system together, so:
 We re-built the whole intranet exactly as-was, but in the new tool
 When we turned it on, no-one noticed, exactly as planned!
UNAIDS
March 24, 2016
A success story:
UNAIDS intranet redesign
Phase 2: visibility & change management
First steps:
• We ran a survey & spoke to people to find out what staff needed
• We started to build components that we knew people would need
Executive change:
• Our new executive director started in January ’09
• One day, he met a member of our staff association in an airport
• The staff rep suggested sold him on the idea of a more collaborative intranet
• EXD then expected us to deliver a whole new intranet in a matter of a few weeks!
Success!
• Because we were ready and had made flexible technical and licensing decisions
• Because we already knew what people were asking for
• We delivered a first new section in a couple weeks and the whole new intranet
within 4 months, with huge buy-in and success.
UNAIDS
March 24, 2016
1
Why start with
the future?
To manage change,
I steward the future
UNAIDS
March 24, 2016
2
Learning from
the past
3
Putting things
into practice
1
Why start with
the future?
To manage change,
I steward the future
UNAIDS
March 24, 2016
2
Learning from
the past
3
Putting things
into practice
The story of my worst project ever
•
•
At my previous organization -- an electronic publishing project
Selection process lead to two options:
1. An
•
•
•
off the shelf product that
did what we wanted,
could be deployed quickly,
at relatively low cost for a pilot
BUT was licensed on a named user basis and would cost millions to
deploy to the whole organization
2. A customized solution that
• could do what we wanted,
• would take a little longer
• would cost more up-front,
BUT would cost significantly less in the long run.
•
After weighing all the pros and cons, we chose the second option, and then it all
went horribly wrong…
UNAIDS
March 24, 2016
The story of my worst project ever
(continued)
Problems with the vendor:



We had to buy licenses from a well-known company and services from a systems integrator
The systems integrator went bankrupt before we concluded the contract
The people jumped ship to another, reputable, company that agreed to take on our
business under the same terms and conditions
Problems with the project:




They sub-contracted without telling us
They never met one single deliverable correctly, and rarely on time
The second (reputable) company then also went bankrupt; the people formed a 3rd new
company and kept the terms and conditions
We cut the contract and our losses, hired staff and completed the project ourselves.
Problems with the product:



We discovered every corner that had been cut, and realized that to deploy globally, we
would have to re-write the whole system (months of work)
In the meantime, a change of management meant that the sponsor was lost and the project
was ultimately cancelled.
A few years later, the need to have electronic publishing was noted and a committee was
formed to study the issue and develop a new solution
UNAIDS
March 24, 2016
Mistakes are the best opportunity
to learn from
In this case, the lessons were:
1. Go off the shelf as much as possible.
The sales manager who refused to negotiate on named user licenses was shortly
thereafter fired from the company that proposed an off-the-shelf-solution
2. Use short, iterative cycles.
By the time we were done, the needs had changed, executive management had
changed and we were scrambling to show something for all our hard work on a
need we knew was critical
3. Involve all the stakeholders & communicate
This we did well, and thanks to legal office & procurement process we had a
watertight contract that gave us a clear way out and saved a lot of money
Note: the contract exits for when times are bad, not when times are good!
UNAIDS
March 24, 2016
A few more lessons:
4. Make the requirements and acceptance process clear
The vendor kept arguing that we were changing requirements. Maybe over that
length of time, we were. Short, iterative cycles would have helped, and having
the vendor know our acceptance process before bidding would have helped too.
5. Avoid fixed-price contracts
Because we need iterative cycles for software development, time and materials
to be kept under a maximum amount is much better.
6. Put terms and conditions (T&Cs) up front when tendering
This we also handled OK, from a previous (but less dramatic) lesson. We now
include all the T&Cs we need in our request for proposals, and bidders are
expected to comply or indicate in their bid what T&Cs they will need to negotiate.
UNAIDS
March 24, 2016
Licensing is integrally
tied to the whole project
•
In our case, we chose a solution based on heavily on customization
rather than licenses
•
We were nervous about the cost of named user licenses
•
In retrospect, with a successful and rapid pilot:
 The organization would probably have adopted the new system quicker
 The vendor would have had an interest in finding a viable solution on the
licensing for us
 If not, we could have continued with an affordable pilot, while looking at other
options as technology evolved
UNAIDS
March 24, 2016
From the intranet project,
we learned:
•
Try to stay ahead in terms of knowing what will be needed & asked for;
•
If you have software developers & you will need to turn things around quickly,
open source may be an option;
•
Most of the hard work is the invisible work;
best to be prepared and start before you ever promise anything.
•
Note: our public web site has very different needs and we have bought a
proprietary content management system.
UNAIDS
March 24, 2016
1
Why start with
the future?
To manage change,
I steward the future
UNAIDS
March 24, 2016
2
Learning from
the past
3
Putting things
into practice
Learn from both
successes & failures
Practical tips on licensing
in the context of eHealth draft declaration
•
Last October, Rwanda kindly hosted a meeting lead by WHO and the
Health Metrics Network looking at eHealth acquisition policy & practice
•
In this draft declaration, there are several areas that link directly to our
topic of intellectual property and licensing
•
Three important ones are:
1. Data ownership
•
Governments felt it important to ensure that they always
maintain ownership of their eHealth data
2. Confidentiality & security
•
Governments felt the need to ensure health data
remains confidential and secure
3. Infrastructure
•
UNAIDS
March 24, 2016
To address the above, the issues of hosting infrastructure were noted
as a critical precursor to software development / deployment
We also face similar
issues in UNAIDS
•
Current example: we are considering e-mail outsourcing,
because we need
 Affordable 24x7 services
 SPAM management is becoming more and more complex
 We need better disaster recovery / service continuity
UNAIDS
March 24, 2016
Can we outsource email?
•
Given that email is a critical service for us, here are some questions:
1. Data ownership: if we are not satisfied with our service provider, how hard
will it be to change in the future? What will be our options?
2. Confidentiality: our email data may have quite sensitive information in it
(incl. info on the HIV status of staff). Hosted on our premises, our data is
subject to the privileges & immunities of the United Nations. If we host
elsewhere:
• Can we negotiate with the government where the data is hosted to
ensure privileges & immunities are respected?
• What if the service provider changes hosting country in the future?
3. Infrastructure: can we ensure the up time & service continuity we need?
Where will data be backed up and restored? If it is cloud computing, see
questions on confidentiality…
UNAIDS
March 24, 2016
Practical approach:
use the procurement process
•
If we decide that outsourcing will be a good approach, then we will have
to tender for the service.
•
When we tender, we always include:

Templates for vendors to fill in on how they meet the requirements

Details of the acceptance process we expect to follow

All the terms and conditions of our future contract
UNAIDS
March 24, 2016
Example: meeting the requirements
•
Req.
No.
This is the type of requirements template we would include in a request for
proposals.
Requirement
System provides API to extract all data entered via
1 web interface
Out of the
box
Requires
customization
Cannot
meet
requirement
Meeting this
requirement is
more than 5% Comments /
of total cost
Explanation
Service continuity management ensures a recovery
2 time of less than 4 hours for 1000 mailboxes
3 Etc.
4
5
6
•
We may give weighting values (e.g. 1-5) to the different requirements, depending
how important they are and then score the vendor on those requirements
UNAIDS
March 24, 2016
Example:
details of the acceptance process
Process is essentially as follows:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Vendor completes delivery, e.g. of a software component,
We receive & test it to see if it is OK
We get back to the vendor to let them know of corrections
They make the necessary changes and re-submit
We re-verify and accept.
•
When we prepare a request for proposals, we included deadlines for all
these activities (e.g. 5 working days for us to advise them of corrections,
5 working days for them to return corrected software, etc.)
•
That way:
a) we are all clear about the process
b) they can budget time for corrections
(otherwise, you might not get what you expect!)
UNAIDS
March 24, 2016
Example:
Terms and conditions
• We include the text:
“Details of the contractual and bidding conditions are to be found in Annex II (Terms and
Conditions). These provide the conditions for the submission of Proposals in response to
this RFP as well as forming the basis of any subsequent Contract(s) that may be
concluded in relation to this RFP.”
• Vendors indentify in their response any T&C they cannot accept.
• This annex would be the place to add T&C about data ownership,
confidentiality, holding the system in escrow, how to hand over the data
& system if the company changes service provider, goes bankrupt or for
some other reason the contract is broken, etc.
We try to be clear ourselves up front on what we can or cannot make
compromises when the time comes for negotiations.
UNAIDS
March 24, 2016
1
Why start with
the future?
To manage change,
I steward the future
UNAIDS
March 24, 2016
2
Learning from
the past
Learn from
successes &
failures
3
Putting things
into practice
Sets the stage for
the way forward
In conclusion
• I have shared some of my own experience with software
& related licensing at UNAIDS
• Every environment is different and I know here in Africa,
and in eHealth, some of the big challenges are:
 Infrastructure (expensive where available)
 Costs and sustainability
 Data ownership, security, confidentiality
 Managing various interests
• In the next session, I will hand it over to you to work in groups to go into
more detail on some of these issues (ownership, confidentiality,
infrastructure) based on your experiences.
UNAIDS
March 24, 2016
Last words:
Needs evolve
Technology progresses
Priorities change
Manage for the future
UNAIDS
March 24, 2016
Questions or comments?
Thank you.
UNAIDS
March 24, 2016