Planning Purchases and Acquisitions
| The process for planning purchases and acquisitions can include external purchasing of products or services as well as those tasks that can be performed within the organization by the project team. At the end of the process, the project manager should be able to determine whether or not to buy, what to buy, and the quantity to purchase. The planning for purchase and acquisitions also includes identifying potential sellers. Depending on the type of project, permits and licenses may be required to perform certain types of tasks leading to the execution of the project. This is more likely to happen in construction projects than in IT projects. The question of when to acquire will be affected by the project schedule. There are many significant financial considerations concerning planning purchases, not the least of which is tying up capital that could be used for other purposes within the organization. These issues will be discussed in this chapter. Finally, each make-or-buy decision will involve risk. The evaluation of the risks involved will always be a part of a detailed planning of purchases and acquisitions for the organization. Reviewing contract types will be a part of this evaluation, and mitigation of risk exposure should be a part of the planning as it relates to different types of contracts and the risk exposure of each. The inputs into planning purchases and acquisitions are enterprise environmental factors, organizational process assets, project Scope Statement, Work Breakdown Structure, a WBS dictionary, and the project management plan. The enterprise environmental factors in procurement include the market conditions in which the project is to be done and the products/services that are available in the market, from whom they can be procured, and under what terms and conditions. If the organization itself does not have formal purchasing or contracting groups, then people on the project team will have to do all the tasks necessary for procurement of products/services to execute the project. There may be times when the project team will need to engage subject matter experts in order to do procurement of various products/services that are not within the scope of knowledge of members of the project team. Organizational process assets include any formal or informal policies that already exist within the organization that pertain specifically to procurement. An example of an organizational policy would be to have a set sum above which purchases must be made with a contract. Under the sum, the purchases may be made with a purchase order. This may be standard for all projects, or it may vary as the size of projects varies. In any case, the organization will set constraints on how purchases can be done and may also have constraints on the size of vendors that can be used for specific types of projects. A qualified vendor list would also be a part of the process assets of the organization as well as a constraint in procurement. Within the project Scope Statement, there will be constraints on procurement such as needed delivery dates, availability of resources, and other organizational policies. The project Scope Statement is the document that will start the procurement planning because it explains the needs for the project as a list of deliverables. The project Scope Statement may also include acceptance criteria that will be used to validate each of the deliverables as they are finished. Detail in the Scope Statement may also show technical requirements and concerns that need to be managed when going through the procurement process. The Work Breakdown Structure and the WBS dictionary are outputs of decomposition of the Scope Statement. The WBS lists tasks necessary to execute the project, and the dictionary provides detail about these tasks. The project management plan as an input into planning purchases and acquisitions includes the overall plan for managing the project as well as subsidiary plans such as risk management, quality management, and procurement management plans. If a Risk Register is available in the project management plan, it can be a valuable tool in planning purchasing. There may also be a component of the plan that deals with risk-related contracts, such as insurance. These risk-related contracts should specify each party's responsibility for risks defined in the contract if and when they occur. The other inputs into planning purchases and acquisition are discussed in depth elsewhere.
The answer is C. Market conditions will influence almost all factors of procurement.
The answer is A. The processes already delineated within the organization will determine how procurement is done.
The answer is A. These two factors are included in the detail done when decomposing the Scope Statement.
The answer is B. The Risk Register will generally include owners of and responses to risks that are identified at the time of writing the project management plan. The tools and techniques used in planning purchases and acquisitions are make-or-buy analysis, expert judgment, and contract types. Make-or-buy analysis is used to determine whether the organization has the capacity to make or offer a specific product/service or whether the organization will need to procure the product/service from a vendor. It is possible that an organization may be able to make a product for use in the project but that doing so would be considerably more expensive than buying it. It may also be that a vendor will have product/service availability that is not present in the organization, even though the organization might be able to provide the product/service if given enough time. Make-or-buy decisions measure the costs of both options. When doing this analysis, it should include both direct and indirect costs so that the final decision is based on comparisons that are equal. For instance, if the buy decision is made, you need to factor in the costs of managing the purchasing process. Although these types of costs are not hidden, they are sometimes ignored, although not by companies that want to stay in business. Another consideration is whether the product/service can be reused in other projects. For instance, a computer that is bought for a specific project may not be cost justified for just that one project, but it may be justified if the cost is spread over several projects on which the computer can be used. Expert judgment can be found both internally and externally. Most often this type of judgment will come from a subject matter expert who can assist the project manager in making sure that the requirement for purchasing is clearly stated. Expert judgment also includes professionals such as accountants and attorneys. Each of these types of experts could be used in analyzing materials before purchasing. Before going outside of the project team or even the organization, it is a good idea to check for organizational assets who have the requisite information and expertise. These people may be available to you at little or no cost and may have some background in how the organization runs its procurement processes.
The answer is D. Every effort must be made to ensure that comparisons include all applicable costs.
The answer is A. These people may be technical subject matter experts or professionals such as attorneys or accountants. Expert judgment is useful all throughout the procurement process. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
EAN: 2147483647
Pages: 167