Involve support groups in the project’s initial planning phase. Getting buy-in becomes a no-brainer once the internal teams become true project partners. This is also helpful in ensuring follow-through on scope, timeframe, and charge-back commitments, as internal resources will likely be under the influence of the same executive team that approved the project.

Get estimates for internal services. You don’t want to create unnecessary work, but asking internal groups for budget numbers or estimates will create better visibility for the importance of your project. If you’re tight on dollars, you might consider comparing your internal estimates against those from external vendors. Be sure that all discussions around cost also include firm expectations on timeframe and scope.

Clearly state your needs. This is particularly important if your project requires specific expertise or significant, high-level support. You don’t want to be assigned a junior-level professional if your project needs someone with many years of experience. This is one area where ambiguity can really sink your project, so provide all internal groups with written statements detailing your requirements and expectations, and strive for the level of granularity you would normally use for external vendors.

Maintain active communication. Tip the allocation of internal resources in your favor by keeping your project’s timeframe and deliverables front and center. If you’ve given internal teams sufficient leadtime, information, and accurate data, they’re more likely to juggle competing requests for support without impacting the resources they’ve committed to you.

PMAlliance uses a team of highly experienced and certified professionals to provide project management consulting, project management training and project office development services.

Know the market

Before you try to finagle the lowest bid in history for the service or equipment you need, it’s important to know what the going market rate is in your area. Why? Because paying significantly below market could be a sign that you’re not getting what you think you’re getting—either in inferior products, inexperienced service providers, or even lackluster warranty coverage—and will end up paying more in the long term to resolve issues, upgrade equipment, or purchase additional parts. Beware, too, the risk you run if you continually expect vendors to submit ultra-low bids: it’s likely the most qualified and experienced vendors will stop bidding on your jobs, and while the remaining vendors may be hungry enough to stick around, you may no longer have access to top-tier providers.

By developing a thorough understanding of the market, you’ll also gain insight into where you can negotiate with the best chance of success. Are raw material costs highly volatile? Is manufacturing the most expensive phase? Can installers in another region be more competitive? Knowing the process from beginning to end will give you significantly more leverage.
Know your resources and limitations

Oftentimes, successful price negotiations are all about knowing exactly what you need, when you need it, and how you need it done. Do you need to pay for expedited shipping, or will a standard leadtime meet your target date? Are your needs too complex for the local vendors? If you aren’t able to negotiate a good price, are you stuck paying a premium, or is there someone in-house qualified to do the work? Be careful that you don’t exclude vendors solely because of price, only to discover you have no other options.

Negotiation takes time and effort—when working with providers to get the best price, it’s important to remember that you have timeframes to maintain and other issues to monitor. Once you’ve massaged the bids to your liking, it’s time to pull the trigger and move on. A fair price for the services or equipment you need is the goal, and excessive negotiations could put the rest of your project in jeopardy.

Know what can—and can’t—be negotiated

A number of project items simply aren’t negotiable. Fees for permits, items required by a regulatory agency, specialty disposal services, some insurance costs, and many other expenses are often set by a municipality or government entity, and aren’t open to negotiation. For these items, gathering real-world costs early in the budget cycle is crucial, as you won’t be able to shave anything off them later.

It’s critical that you examine each bid closely when working with these types of costs. If vendors feel they must offer the lowest price to win your business, there’s a chance the less scrupulous among them will omit these fixed costs from their bids. Carefully evaluate each bid to ensure it encompasses all the costs likely to be involved in the project. It’s also your responsibility to know which expenses can be funneled through your vendors, and which must be paid directly by you or, if you’re working for a client, the project’s owner. Again, this applies most often to fees incurred through a municipality or agency with regulatory oversight.

PMAlliance uses a team of highly experienced and certified professionals to provide project management consulting, project management training and project office development services.

1. End user training. An important but sometimes neglected issue, PMs should take charge of making sure users know how to make the most of—and safely use—all the new goodies your project provided.

2. Documentation updates. Make current all manuals (maintenance, operation, procedural), asset sheets, license databases, regulatory information, building drawings, and anything else affected by your project.

3. Certification/validation of equipment, software, and processes. End users sometimes prefer to manage this responsibility themselves, but your team should at least be aware of the need for post-project certification or validation. Confirm that resources are available and ready for use before considering the project complete.

4. User and stakeholder surveys. Solicit, evaluate, and respond to feedback while the project is still fresh.

5. Service agreement changes. Service agreements may need to be amended to cover changes made as part of your project. Evaluate existing agreements to see what needs updating.

6. Legal and accounting issues. Wind down project-related insurance policies, vendor contracts, price/work agreements, and all final invoicing. This leaves your organization and its vendors ready to begin the next project.

7. Project post-mortem. Your team deserves the opportunity to learn from and improve upon their performance, so consider post-mortems a top priority.

8. Documentation archival. The ability to locate and retrieve information at a later date will depend on today’s efforts.

9. Reassign staff. Work with your team to distribute their expertise among other active projects, or those in the pipeline.

10. Celebrate success. Reward your team’s efforts, and make a note of any outstanding achievements. Update individual personnel files as appropriate.

PMAlliance uses a team of highly experienced and certified professionals to provide project management consulting, project management training and project office development services.

1. Have a standard, workable change process. It’s important to evaluate change requests against a uniform set of criteria. This will also help to deter requests that are unlikely to meet a formal sniff test. Your process should include the oversight of expected budget impacts, and a communication plan to ensure the team is aware of approved project changes.

2. Look for small changes that should be combined. If your team is receiving multiple small change requests, there’s a chance you’ll find a larger issue as the cause. Instead of addressing each change request as a separate entity, consider if a single large-scale modification to the project would be more effective.

3. Determine if changes are part of your project. Is this something that needs to change while the project is active, or is it an issue that’s better managed once your project is done? It’s not uncommon for projects to cause folks to reassess related processes, and you must be diligent in culling issues that aren’t part of your project.

4. Know your vendors. If a provider has submitted extensive change requests on past projects, consider if they underbid the project initially or if the changes were outside their control. Reliable vendors will understand and embrace their role in managing change requests.

5. Evaluate your planning process. Changes are inevitable, but it’s worth your time to carefully evaluate your planning process after each project. Were changes a result of ineffective or incomplete planning? Are there issues that should be considered more fully next time? Refine your planning process continuously.

PMAlliance uses a team of highly experienced and certified professionals to provide project management consulting, project management training and project office development services.

1 – Set a deadline. If your decision doesn’t already have a “must do by” date in the project plan, then now is the time to set one. Continuing to delay this step may cause other project deliverables to slide.

2 – Stop gathering data. This sounds counterintuitive, but chances are good that you know you don’t need more information. Instead, you need to look at the data you currently have, make a decision, and move on. In most cases, continuing to add more data will only exacerbate the issue.

3 – What can go wrong? If fear of failure or repercussions is causing the delay, ask yourself what the consequences might be if you make the wrong decision. Would the situation be recoverable? Does your project have a timeline and/or budget that would allow for the necessary revisions later?

4 – Delegate. If another person in your PMO is qualified to make this decision, why not hand it over to them? Explain that you’re too close to the data, or are too busy with other aspects of the project to devote the time needed to decide on a course of action.

5 – Confer with others. It may not be the type of decision you’d normally mull over with others on your team, but getting another perspective may be just what you need. This is especially helpful if you’ll be presenting your recommendation to senior staff, and may be suffering from a bit of anxiety over that level of visibility.

PMAlliance uses a team of highly experienced and certified professionals to provide project management consulting, project management training and project office development services.