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What ' s New in 1997Several changes have been made to the January 1997 release of the Business Consulting Engagement Quality Assurance (EQA) Procedures & Guidelines. These changes are based primarily on the feedback provided by BC practitioners, the results of our 1996 practice reviews, and input from the Firm ' s Legal Group. Identified below are these changes.Risk SMARTRisk SMART has been automated. Key features include the on line entry of risk indicators, on line entry ofaction steps for high risk items and the automated preparation of the Risk Management Action Plan.Automation of the risk assessment process will facilitate the completion of the required forms and in obtainingthe required consultation from the mandated BC partners.The automated Risk SMART is available from the BC KnowledgeSpace. The Word documents will continueto be available in the EQA manual to allow for a smooth transition to the automated system.InterimAgreement On occasion it may not be possible to get a contract fully negotiated before the scheduled commencement date of AA ' s services. In these cases, we now have anInterim Agreement (See Appendix 21). An Interim Agreement is a short contract that documents the fact thatthe parties are working toward, but have not yet finalized, a definitive agreement. Specific usage guidance isincluded in the appendix.Changes to theJobArrangement Letter and Consulting Services Agreement There have been several changes to the standard terms and conditions associated with our Job Arrangement Letter (Appendix 14) and our Consulting Services Agreement (Appendix 15). These changes are defined below and have been included in the appendices.These new contracts must be used on all new engagements.Remember, these appendices are based on the laws of the United States. Countries outside the U.S. will need to work with their Area Legal Group (Nancy Laben in Hong Kong and Michael Hughes in Paris) to make the appropriate changes based on local laws and regulations.Ownership ofWork ProductIt has been our initial position that the client retains ownership of the work product. This has raised questionsregarding knowledge capital and the reuse of developed products on subsequent engagements, particularlyon custom systems development engagements. Consequently, we have changed the initial position in ourcontracts so that AA retains the ownership of the work products and the client has a non-exclusive license touse the work products. Optional provisions continue to be offered in the Consulting Services Agreement. Year 2000Potential risks to the Firm associated with the “ Year 2000 ” problem have beenaddressed in our standard contracts. Areas affected include the limits of liability, indemnification andwarranty. Please note the inclusion of the appropriate legal language and guidance for usage.Warranty Government Contracts (U.S. only) The default warranty period offered in our standard contracts has been reduced from 90 days to 30 days. In some instances, such as custom systems development, this time frame may be insufficient. Changes to the warranty period are a matter of business and you should involve your Country/Regional Quality Leader in these discussions.In the past we have offered alternate limit of liability, indemnification, and warranty language for contracts with any government agencies. Our experience has been that contracts with government agencies go far beyond these three areas and typically require the involvement of the Firm ' s legal group. In gaodvdeitrionnm,ent clients tend to present us with their contract to sign thereby creating the need to include the Firm ' s legal group.Therefore, this alternate language has been removed and it is now recommended that all government contracts be reviewed with th e Firm ' s legal group.。
