Contract Management

APPENDIX 15

A dozen things I wish they’d told me when I started

1. Just because it’s written in black and white, it doesn’t mean it will happen.
2. A dog is a man’s best friend; questions are the Contract Manager’s best friend.
3. Technical expertise on subject matter is helpful – but not essential – for the Contract Manager. But a strategy to cover a knowledge gap is! (‘A fool is a man who knows not – and knows not that he knows not … ’)
4. Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight; red sky at morning, shepherd’s warning. Learn to ‘read’ the signs when business interests/alignment is changing.
5. Knowledge (‘know-how’) transfer is as important as physical transfer of property (that’s what we mean by intellectual property).
6. Communications can become unstructured ...