The Governance of Project Management

  Governance   Legal Project Management   Lessons Learned   PMO  

In my article, The Project Manager is the Keystone to Successful Delivery, I discussed the role of the project manager in meeting the challenges of project plan development, project execution, fiscal management, project communications, risk and scope management/change control. However, there is another rarely mentioned component spanning the entire spectrum of delivery management that the knowledgeable project manager must either as buyer or seller address on a daily basis--contract management.

I can tell you horror stories about poor contract management--lack of a paper trail of correspondence, no central office of record for project documentation, lost documents detailing key meetings and desired contract adjustments, etc. The list goes on and on. These horror stories happen because a project manager lacks sound business methodology and process in contract management. Project managers need not be contract lawyers, but they need to have a fundamental understanding of contracts, contract administration and the legal implications governing the execution of the project. Simply put, the project contract is the governance of the project. Whatever actions the project manager takes (or doesn't take) will have contractual consequences.

Granted, document, fiscal and change management procedures and dispute resolution are also critical to effective contract management, but a …

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