“Just let Purchasing handle the purchasing of resources for this project”.

How many times have you heard someone make this statement? The purchasing of resources of a project is the project manager’s responsibility. You, not the Purchasing Dept, will be held accountable that the resource requested was the resource purchased.

The Purchasing Department is your “agent”; your team determines the requirements and submits those requirements to Purchasing for them to act upon them. Your team, along with Purchasing, determines the following:

1) Vendor Selection – How will vendors be evaluated and selected, who are the recommend/preferred vendors and will they meet your project resource requirements? Do not fall into the trap that because a vendor is a “preferred” vendor you must use them. The vendor must show on all purchasing requirements that they can meet or exceed the requirements. A preferred vendor is not an entitlement.

2) Resource requirements— what needs to be purchased, what are the specifications of hardware and software, have you involved your IT department in the selection of products? Will the products work in your environment? Do you have the expertise in-house or do you need to contract for it?

Resource requirements and lead time to secure can be one of the longest time constraints on a project. This is often overlooked when you are looking at all the tasks in a project

3) Delivery, cost and budget must be considered when securing a resource. Do you have the money? If not how will you get it and how long will it take to secure? Lead time must be considered. Delivery issues such as how long, who pays the shipping charges, is it FOB (Freight On Board), etc all must be spelled out in the Purchasing contract.

4) Do you use Purchase Requisitions? Are terms spelled out, delivery terms identified, and payment terms specified? Will the requisition be submitted to purchasing for approval?

5) What are the legal implications? Has the purchase requisition, vendor proposal and contracts been submitted to legal for their review? Is there a process for legal review?

More to come on Purchasing and Contracts in next months news letter, if you have any comments please send to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it