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BUYING AN AFIS SYSTEM: THE BASIC DOCUMENTS NEEDED 147

process properly, and that they test the product thoroughly. While there is a
CMU model that permits the measurement of the maturity of a procurement
organization, it is unlikely that an agency that is not normally involved in the
large-scale computer system procurement business would spend the time and
resources to develop and maintain such skills in-house.
This chapter explains how to apply the lessons from the SEI and from many
AFIS procurements to increase the probability of a successful procurement—
one you can be proud of and that provides years of quality service.

7.3 OVERALL STRATEGY

There are logical phases to any AFIS procurement (or any other large pro-
curement activity), and there are structured ways to approach each of them.
The overall process can be cleanly divided into three phases:

1. Pre-acquisition
2. Acquisition
3. Development and deployment

The activities in each phase should be structured to address the appropriate
issues as thoroughly and rapidly as possible. One way to do this is to use a struc-
tured decision tree to focus on the development of appropriate decisions and
to document them. What is a decision tree? It is a series of questions that are
intended to open your mind to possibilities, narrow down decisions, and ensure
completeness of the process. The questions are based on years of procurement
experience and common sense, but still follow the age-old basics: who, what,
why, where, when, and how.
A decision tree provides a way to make and document decisions. Like a cus-
tomer satisfaction survey instrument, answers can filter out inappropriate ques-
tions. Think of a customer survey that instructs “If your answer to question 8 is
No, then skip to question 13.” In our case, a good example would be “If you
are not going to search latent fingerprints, skip to question 22.”
Do not think of a static set of questions that can simply be sent to stake-
holders in the mail when buying an AFIS. The biggest challenge is likely to be
their lack of up-to-date knowledge about AFIS technology and procurement
options. While the questions can evoke new thinking, it takes an expert to
effectively work through the questions with the stakeholders. This is because
program managers typically buy just one AFIS in a lifetime, yet the technology,
standards, and products evolve relentlessly. The requirement specifications
and source selection criteria are unique for each situation and cannot just be
updated from the last procurement or from another agency’s procurement.