Digital modernisation pricing-readiness gate

Authority and zero gate

• Name outcome, service, information, architecture, security, records, operations, procurement, finance and acceptance owners.
• Preserve request, clarifications, discovery evidence, estimate versions and approvals.
• Do not treat a preferred product, budget ceiling or deadline as a verified requirement.
• Do not release a fixed delivery price when material scope or output specifications remain unknown.
• Permit a fixed-price discovery only when its own inputs, timebox, deliverables and acceptance are controlled.

Minimum controlled artifact set

Unknowns and assumptions register

Classify each as observed, assumed or unresolved. Resolve, prototype, bound, allocate or exclude; never silently convert an unknown into fixed scope.

Outcome, scope and requirements gate

• Outcome and measurable value are named independently of platform.
• In-scope and out-of-scope users, journeys, information, locations and lifecycle states are explicit.
• Functional requirements include exception, correction and administrative paths.
• Quality requirements cover accessibility, security, privacy, reliability, performance, compatibility, maintainability and portability as applicable.
• Priorities, requirement sources, conflicts and approval authority are recorded.
• A change-control baseline exists without preventing iterative refinement inside agreed tolerances.

Architecture and dependency gate

Acceptance and responsibility gate

• Each deliverable has objective acceptance evidence, tolerance, reviewer and decision time.
• Critical user journeys include positive, negative, exception and accessibility tests.
• Migration acceptance distinguishes reconciliation, integrity, permissions, search and business usability.
• Buyer, supplier and third-party inputs are assigned with dates and consequences.
• Licensing, environments, data access, test participants and authoritative decisions have named providers.
• Warranty, defect, change and new-scope definitions do not overlap ambiguously.

Estimate construction and confidence gate

• Include analysis, quality, release, operations transition and management as separate effort rows alongside build effort.
• Separate labour, licenses, consumption, expenses, buyer effort and third-party charges.
• State currency, GST, rates, escalation, validity, schedule and capacity assumptions.
• Explain contingency causally and calibrate with completed comparable work where available.
• Version the estimate and retain variance evidence at the same work-breakdown level.

Price-mechanism decision

Gate decision, evidence pack and cadence

Record PASS, CONDITIONAL or FAIL for each gate, the evidence URI, reviewer, date and expiry trigger. Overall outcomes are: release the proposed price mechanism; narrow/split scope; commission discovery or proof; change commercial model; defer; or stop.

Retain inventories and scans, workshop evidence, requirements, quality model, options, spikes, risks, assumptions, work breakdown, estimate calculations, responsibilities, acceptance, commercial rationale and approvals.

• At request release: confirm comparable and accessible bidder information.
• Before contract: rerun all gates against final clarifications and terms.
• At each stage: rebaseline only through controlled evidence.
• After completion: compare estimate and actual by work package and update reference classes.

Passing establishes decision readiness. Cost, schedule and platform remain conditional on the recorded assumptions. Procurement rules and legal advice must be applied for the buyer's actual jurisdiction.