APM Guide to Contracts and Procurement
APM’s Contracts and Procurement Specific Interest Group’s long-awaited APM Guide to Contracts and Procurement:
For Project, Programme and Portfolio Managers has been published and is available from the APM bookshop online.
Procurement and contract management is an increasingly important aspect to delivering successful projects, programmes and portfolios, especially as outsourcing of complex packages of works is a growing trend. As solutions become increasingly intricate and require specialist providers who need to work together to deliver complex solutions over several sectors it helps if project managers have a have a basic understanding of procurement and contracting in order to effectively manage this.
The APM’s Contract & Procurement SIG (C&P SIG) therefore offers this guide as a ‘place to go’ that will supply a basic understanding of ‘how to’ procure sub-project works and to manage delivery through the phases of the procurement life cycle.
The guide also offers direction to stakeholders within organisations who wish to increase their awareness of how works can be procured e.g. financial officers, operational professionals, engineers.
Over the past five years the APM C&P SIG team has initiated many events and workshops that have provided guidance to a wide range of project managers who undertake projects across a wide range of organisations in both the public and private domains. It has been evident over this period that there is a high demand for a quick reference guide that could be used, especially by those new to the procurement of significant elements of their projects, and that could provide a quick reference to the optimum procurement method at each stage of the project life cycle.
The guide breaks down the process of procurement of significant packages of work into individual stages. This enables the busy project manager to swiftly understand the key points required at the outset, or mid-flight, when corrective action may be needed. Each stage includes an easy-to-follow flow diagram, including the necessary inputs and outputs.