What’s contract management?

Your project kick-off meeting is scheduled in the coming days and according to the agenda (objectives, organization, methods, schedule) you are responsible for contractual and commercial matters related to. You are a conductor of an orchestra of contracts. Your project is made of one single contract. Piece of cake. Your project is made of several contracts with various level of hierarchy (client, contractors, sub-contractors, co-contractors), you need to make sure that each contract knows how to communicate with the other #interfacemanagement. An Interface could cover a technical requirement as well a commercial matter. Initially, you wanted to have all your contracts signed with the same financial compensation mechanism but due to market environment you have no other choice than to negotiate your Client contract on a lump sum basis and your Contractor contract on a unit rate basis. Changes and deviations will anyway occur during execution, think project wide and anticipate the cascade effect of a change on a contract to another one #change management. Draft your contract clauses accordingly #contractnegotiation: could we use the contractor unit rate as basis of agreement on price of a change in your Client lump sum contract (don’t forget your own fee😊)? Shall we strengthen the #reporting requirements in the Contractor contract to smooth the progress-based invoicing process in the Client Contract?

Green light, instruction to start execution of the works is given. You must implement the process to administrate and monitor the #contractdata on a regular basis (daily, weekly, monthly). Your job is now to make sure that every action that is done (and not done) is fully covered by the contract terms. If not, amend all contracts impacted #changemanagement through amendment, additional work order, change order, claim! Make them reflect the actual situation of the environment. A contract is like a roommate agreement (#thebigbangtheory), it provides how we are going to live together during the execution of the project. We sign it based on the conditions known at the time of signature, we then complete, adjust, correct it as more changes and uncertainties occur.

I guess this short introduction gives room to many open questions such as how to implement #contractmanagement within your organization? what are the means required to properly endorse this responsibility, human and/or software assistance? What are the processes to follow?