Procurement is used in project management to acquire goods and/or services from outside sources for several different reasons in a project, such as:
- Reducing both fixed and recurrent costs
- Extra help during peak performance periods
- Access to specific skills and technologies
- Allow your organization to focus on their core competencies
Problems with Outsourcing:
- Less control over the aspects of projects that suppliers carry out
- Organization becomes too dependent on certain suppliers, which leads to a high risk if they go out of business or lose key personnel
- Security issues due to intellectual property, integrity of data and reliability of infrastructure of offshore locations
Procurement Process:
- Plan: Determine what you want to procure (make-buy decision, contract to use, statement of work definition), when, and how (source selection criteria)
- Execute: Research potential sellers, conduct interviews, award contracts. Review: resource calendars, change request, project plan updates, and project documents
- Monitor & Controlling: Administer procurement, managing relationships with sellers, performance evaluation, manage change requests and project plan updates
- Closing: Close procurements, settlement of contract, resolution of open items, and asses procurement process “lessons learned”
Develop a Procurement Management Plan that includes:
- Contract to be used
- Procurement document/template
- WBS & Statement of Work (SOW)
- Roles & Responsibilities
- Evaluation Matrix
- Constraints & Assumptions
- Process for coordinating procurement decisions & change requests
What tips do you have in regards to procuring outside resources?
Project Management Plan Example
