Procurement managers

Depending on your procurement experience and how your organization works with sellers, you may also be working with a procurement department. In general, it is assumed that project managers cannot legally or contractually bind their organization to another. It's also assumed (unless otherwise stated on the exam), that we are the buyer. That may not be the case in your real world, and in some cases on multiple projects you may be performing the activities of both the buyer and seller. First, you are the buyer to acquire equipment necessary for an install, and second, you are the seller for the customer whose install you are doing.

No matter what, there is probably a procurement department and a procurement manager overseeing contracts in your organization. Many times, the project managers do the pre-work for procurement needs.

Here are some items the procurement manager or administrator is in charge of:

• Performing the negotiations
• Determining which contract types are needed
• Procurement change-control
• Officially closing out the contracts throughout the life cycle of the project as needed

Because of the high level of interaction on some projects between procured resources and the project manager, it is important to understand terms and conditions, incentives, and different contract types. Mostly, we can leave the depth of contractual knowledge to the procurement managers. We will cover what you need to know about your role in procurement in Chapter 9, Monitoring and Controlling Project Work.