The Procurement Management Plan is an important part of project management practices and ensures stable and calm work of both the project manager and the project team and stakeholders.
Whether you are working with the Scrum framework, another Agile model, or Waterfall project management, you will probably need preparation.
The Project Manager plans a communication related to the supply of materials
The main strategy is active communication with material suppliers. This is necessary so that we can prevent delays in deliveries and deadlines. In the event of a delivery delay, a report will be sought directly from the material supplier. If the delay in the delivery of materials becomes more frequent, then the issue will be raised to its direct manager – the project manager for deliveries – George Liam. In the absence of an adequate position on the part of the supply company, it will be necessary to gradually reorient to another company dealing with the supply of materials for the project. Reference: https://wikipedia-lab.org/procurement-management-plan-template-with-real-example-data/
Another possible problem is the suspension of supplies of materials indefinitely. Due to the importance of the materials, such a shutdown would lead to significant losses for our company. For this reason, in this situation, we need to start an immediate study of other external companies that provide materials of the same quality at similar prices. If despite everything, we do not find suitable companies, we must not compromise on quality. Then we will have to invest in a company with more expensive but better materials. This solution has the following disadvantage – we must deprive ourselves of the production of the number of washing machines set by the customer by actively communicating with him and explaining the given situation. The main thing we should strive for is to convince the customer that we should not deprive ourselves of quality at the expense of quantity. Of course, the last word is up to the customer – if he says he is willing to sacrifice quality in the name of a given piece, then we will find a company that for the specific amount will provide us with materials of similar quality, at a lower price and so will we manage to fulfill our original plan. See Project Plan…
Confidentiality of documentation and relations between the parties in the project
Due to the fact that the company is external, the only thing that will have to excite our supplier is only the materials and feedback on their quality. In addition, the deadlines for which the materials must be delivered will have to be mentioned. Any additional information such as – budget, internal developments and optimizations, technologies used and innovative solutions and ideas must remain out of its reach.
Communication with the client
The main strategy we must use in communicating with our clients is to organize frequent meetings to give them feedback on what is happening in our project. In this way, we will give them confidence and we will not fall into a situation where the client does not know what is happening, there is no clarity and from there begins to worry about whether the project will be completed on time or not. The main problem we can encounter here is the delay with our deadlines. Depending on the situation, we have several moves – if we know the reason for the delay and it can be corrected within the project, ie we have a delay for a short period of time, the client should not be informed about it. If the delay occurs due to reasons that prevent the completion of the project on time, it is necessary to actively communicate with the client, to highlight the reasons for this delay, and to find a compromise that will satisfy both parties. Reference: Procurement Management Plan in project management practices, https://stc-montreal.org/procurement-management-plan-in-project-management-practices/
Another problem that may arise is a change in customer requirements. In this case, the solution is to send a document that indicates the scope of the current project, with which our company certifies what is included and what is not included in the current project. Of course, this does not mean that our company cannot negotiate the implementation of a new requirement, but in this case, it will be necessary to review the budget, resources, time, and of course whether this change will be worth the time and effort invested in it. . For this reason, such situations should be avoided.
The client only needs to understand information about meeting deadlines and which part of the project is completed. Any type of information related to development, unique ideas, internal developments, etc. must remain hidden from the client.
Internal communication between Project Manager and stakeholders
Internal communication between the teams is extremely important for achieving the desired goals. The main strategy is to keep our developers interested in the project we are developing. Our main strategy here is to have clear criteria on the part of the client, in the absence of such or ambiguities to actively communicate with the client and to clarify the ambiguities before the tasks come to the developers.
Another critical point is the change of scope by the client. In such situations, this should also be discussed with the developers so that we can clearly and adequately assess whether the investment and the risk of increasing the scope make sense or not. Possible negative scenarios are related to the lack of satisfaction and lack of willingness on the part of developers to do the tasks assigned to them. For this reason, their managers (engineering managers) must actively communicate with them, understand the reasons and prerequisites for their behavior, and find a solution to this problem. Read more: How to Create a Project Management Communication Plan example template
Another possible problem that may arise is a lack of resources. At this point, we need to consider the current budget and whether it is possible to include an additional team in the project development. However, if this is not successful and we do not have enough financial resources, we will have to think about the reason that leads to the lack of such a resource and distribute the work among more teams.
No company is insured against this and employees do not leave. When a situation arises when an employee leaves, we will have to have active communication with the team from which the person is leaving. What is the main purpose of this? The idea is to find out if the team would cope even with the person who left or not. In case they fail to cope in time, then we need to find a team to support the current one so that the project is completed on time. If even this does not happen, then we will have to communicate this fact with the client and we will have to be able to negotiate a change in the deadlines.
Information on budget and financial resources should only be discussed with the executive director and the project sponsor. This type of information should not reach our developers. The only things that fall within the scope of our developers are – deadlines, customer requirements, changes in customer requirements, change in deadlines. Any other information is considered redundant and will not be shared with the developers.
Strategies for future project development, future plans, financial statements, etc. will be agreed and discussed only with the executive director and the project sponsor.
A table with the main participants in the project and their roles and contacts is attached to the current document. This information may also be exported to third parties.
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