Buying Scope Better

  ProjectsAtWork  

Form a team to improve your project procurement process.

Your project is to build a new vehicle, but your company lacks the capability to build the engine, so you buy it from an outside source. But how do you ensure you get the engine you need? Use procurement management, says Quentin Fleming, a Tustin, Calif.-based consultant.

"Procurement management is about buying project scope, and more companies are buying greater amounts of their projects," Fleming says. "And procurement management is important because when you buy something, you buy it under a legal contract and have to specify precisely what you want. If you don't describe well what you want, then it's called a change order."

The antidote for excessive or inadvertent change orders: Form a procurement team, made up of a professional buyer and a technical expert, Fleming says.

Above all, don't make the mistake of being your own buyer. "Project managers often think they can manage procurements themselves when in fact they really need the expertise of a professional buyer," Fleming concludes.

Fleming can be reached via www.QuentinF.com.

Please log in or sign up below to read the rest of the article.