Saturday, April 30, 2016

Procurement Contract Closure

Questions in the Closing process group account for 8% of the exam.

Close Procurement
Close Procurement supports the Close Project or Phase process but doesn’t necessarily happen at the same time.
However, to close the project, all procurement's must be closed.

Exception:
The exception to this is if you have open claims or appeals. Open claims are handled by the legal department.

To close out a procurement, you use the procurement management plan for the details and guidelines associated with contract closure. All procurement documents need to be indexed for lessons learned and future reference. Procurement documents include performance reports, invoices, and contractual change documentation. Your organization may use information from contractor performance reports and documentation to evaluate contractors for future work.

Termination of a contract
Contracts can be terminated for a variety of reasons, such as

  1. termination by mutual agreement, 
  2. termination for cause,  
  3. termination for convenience.


Terminating a contract by mutual agreement: 
If both parties agree that the contract should be cancelled, they need to follow the requirements in the termination clause of the contract. Be aware that termination for cause and termination for convenience have different contractual obligations associated with them.

Termination for cause
Termination for cause occurs when either party has breached or is about to breach the contract. This is also known as defaulting on the contract.
Here are two examples of seller default:
The seller can’t deliver the quality of work promised, and there is no evidence that the seller will be able to.
The clause Time is of the Essence is in the contract, and it’s abundantly clear that the seller can’t meet the delivery date.
The following are examples of buyer default:
The buyer is in significant arrears for payment, and it’s obvious that the buyer can’t catch up on back payments and make future payments.
The buyer is obligated to provide some element or component of the deliverable for the seller to be able to complete the contract. If the buyer doesn’t deliver the element, the buyer is defaulting on its part of the contract.

Termination for convenience
Many contracts have a clause that allows the buyer to terminate the contract at its convenience. Examples of reasons to terminate for convenience include the following:
Another project takes higher priority, and the company decides to cancel or delay the current project.
The market changes, and there is no longer a need for the project.
Because of a reorganization, new leadership has other priorities.
Financial landscape has shifted. A company’s quarterly earnings were worse than expected, and the organization has decided to cut costs based on projected earnings.

Saturday, December 21, 2013

Plan Procurement Management

Plan Procurement Management:
How to determine which project needs are to be met by procurement instead of being developed by project team. Basically how to arrive at Procurement decision.
How to identify potential sellers?
How to evaluate sellers?
How to procure?
How much to procure?
How to decide when to procure?
How to determine which type of Contract to be used?
How to determine the risks in a contract?
How to manage Risks?
How to manage multiple vendors?
How to manage procurement with other aspects of Project scheduling, Project reporting etc?
How to carry out the Make or Buy decision?

Contract:
Contract can also be called an agreement/subcontract/purchase order.
Generally Contract is a legally & mutually binding between buyer and seller, which must meet the needs of the project while adhering to the organizations procurement policies.
Language describes product, svc, or results needed
Complex projects can have multiple contracts.
Various activities involved in the Project Procurement Management processes form the life cycle of a contract.
Contract or contract lifecyle can be end once it is done. And this can happen in any phase of the project.
Contract & Contract type is also a tool used to share/transfer risk between buyer and seller.


Diff between Contract and Agreement:
An agreement is an informal compromise between two or more parties, which may or may not be legally binding.
A contract is a legally-binding agreement that is entered into voluntarily by two or more parties, with the intention of creating one or more legal obligations among them.