Establishing procurement management teams of the outsource of IT

The time and energy needed to manage subcontractors can often be seriously underestimated. If project managers require the project teams to oversee outsource IT portions of the project in addition to their internal responsibilities, the procurement aspects will usually be given a lesser priority. As a result, subcontractors that cannot get timely responses to their questions will be forced to make assumptions that could create cost overruns.

Another alternative to requiring project teams to manage subcontractors is to have the outsourced IT project manager manage them. In such cases the outsourced IT project manager will most likely find that this can be very time consuming and will divert attention from managing the outsourced IT project to managing subcontractors and would be beneficial to outsource IT.

The alternative for managing subcontractors that has been proven down through the years is to establish Procurement Management Teams (PMT). The PMT is more than a group of individuals who act as mediators between the outsourced IT project manager and the outsourced IT subcontractors. Their role includes greater responsibilities than this. Depending on the size of criticality of the portion of IT being outsourced the PMT membership may be from a minimum of two people to many more.

Even the smallest outsourced IT project effort will require a technical overseer and someone who has legal authority to issue and implement a formal written contract. Other PMT members may include the outsource IT project coordinator, technical specialists, and a document control specialist.