An ongoing delivery agreement
- 1
Priorities
One backlog owner and a regular decision cadence
- 2
Capacity
The capability and availability included in the engagement
- 3
Release
Review, verification and production approval responsibilities
- 4
Continuity
Documentation, access and handover when people change
Separate defects from new scope
A shared backlog can contain maintenance, product improvements and urgent defects, but each needs a visible priority and acceptance condition.
Review the working arrangement
Inspect completed outcomes, unresolved risks and the cost of coordination. Adjust the cadence when the business changes rather than letting the agreement become an inherited assumption.
Define the continuing responsibility
Ongoing delivery is appropriate when an application needs regular improvement beyond a single release. Agree the systems covered, the types of work included and the decision-making arrangement. Feature development, defect correction and platform maintenance compete for capacity, so priorities should be visible rather than negotiated separately for each request.
Establish a backlog that connects work to business outcomes or operating risks. Describe who can add work, who prioritises it and who accepts completion. A recurring engagement does not remove the need to agree scope. It creates a regular mechanism for deciding which bounded changes should be delivered next and what evidence is needed to accept them.
Balance new work with the health of the system
Review dependencies, release reliability and recurring support issues alongside feature requests. A system can appear to progress while accumulating maintenance work that later makes every change slower. Make that work visible and explain its practical consequence, such as an unsupported dependency or a recovery procedure that has not been tested.
Use a regular demonstration to review completed behaviour with the business. Show the affected workflow and its important exceptions, rather than only a list of technical tasks. Record changes in priorities and the effect on planned work. Where an external dependency blocks progress, identify the owner and a decision date instead of leaving the item indefinitely in progress.
Review the arrangement as needs change
Agree the reporting rhythm, commercial basis and boundaries of the engagement in writing. Include how urgent operational issues enter the process and whether they affect planned delivery. Availability and response commitments need explicit agreement rather than assumptions based on the existence of an ongoing contract.
Periodically assess whether the team shape and delivery cadence still fit the application. A period of major change may be followed by lighter maintenance, or new integrations may introduce different skills. Keep handover documentation current throughout. The business should retain a clear understanding of its system and priorities, rather than become dependent on a supplier simply because the work continues over time.
Commercial terms are agreed for the actual scope and team. This page describes an operating model, not a published price or a guaranteed allocation.