Subtitles of the Movie

To date we've talked about the various contract types: the Procurement Planning process, the selection of a vendor and the awarding of a contract. Now that the vendor has been chosen it's time for the work to begin from the vendor's standpoint. This occurs through the Conduct Procurement process. This is where the Procurement Management Plan once again becomes essential. How the work of the vendor will be managed should be addressed here, but you'll also need to be clearly aware of the contract terms and conditions. This includes handling change requests and how the work will be managed. It is common for the vendor to manage and monitor their own work and provide us, as the buyer, with regular status updates and reports. The contract should address how disputes will be handled, particularly when they develop into large disputes that may involve the courts. The procurement department often handles contract administration. This is an important aspect to conducting procurements which, again, is where the work takes place. Contract administration is where the relationship between the buyer and the seller is managed and where all elements of the contract are overseen. Changes to the contract must be managed carefully and should be addressed within the contract. Now it's likely clear how important a well-worded contract is and how important it is that all of these items that we're looking at, such as scope, changes, performance criteria and handling disputes be addressed. By the way, some type of records management system will be needed to archive all documents pertaining to the vendors and also to track all of the changes that take place and that are approved. We'll look at contract closure in the next section, involving the closing of the project as a whole, but at this point I'd like to mention that contracts must be formally closed out before the project itself can be closed out. That means that any open disputes must be settled first. And that closes out this movie on conducting procurements, as well as the section as a whole.