What makes Great Contract Delivery – Best Practice and Things to Avoid (Part 5)
In this short series of blogs I have tried to outline what I have found to be the key pillars of reliable and effective contract delivery. These are the habits that I have found to be most beneficial to my clients and project teams. If you follow these tips you will not go far wrong and they can be a touchstone of what to do if you are ever in doubt. This final blog explains best practice and things to avoid to ensure great contract delivery.
So to recap, a professional contract administrator will:
- Set the right behavioural philosophy for the team
- Clearly define what you want
- Produce robust and signed contract documents
- Apply disciplined administration
But what are the pitfalls that might tempt you away from this path?
Despite knowing what is good for you, people don’t always do the right thing. Other stuff can get in the way and a great administrator will spot these pitfalls and seek to avoid them. The following list details techniques to ensure best practice:
- Keep your eye on the crystal ball: Just as things look to be going well you need to stay on your toes. Even the best projects can be derailed at any time. For that reason is why we have risk registers. They force us to look into the future for possible problems and use the time when things are going well to look at your risks. Don’t be afraid to go looking for a problem.
- Maintain standards: Most of the team will at some time ask you to loosen the administration reigns such as meet less frequently, ease off on the paperwork or to not be so formal. Do this sparingly and with caution. If things are quiet, use that time to see what can be improved or done smarter or better.
- Stop issues drifting: Don’t allow items to sit on a risk/issues log with no end date. Seek to bring things to a head and inject new pace and effort to close them out.
- Watch the data: If you and the team feel comfortable then take that emotional view out of it. Have a long hard look at the contract data, KPIs, rates of change, % agreed, dates met or missed and much more. Is the data that you have telling you the truth and is it reliable? You cannot hide from the facts of the data and it may give you a clue that things are not as okay as they seem.
- See it through and finish strong: The final outcome of the contract is a critical test for the success of the project. Don’t get tempted by the next new thing without properly closing down the contract. Ensure that it has been fully discharged.
The best project managers set a plan, see it through and make no excuses. The contract is when all the hard work comes to a head. Finally, you will implement the strategy that you helped create. As Winston Churchill said: “However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.”