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BSBPMG518 Manage project procurement

Assessment Task 1: Written Questions

1. List at least five sections that are commonly included in a procurement management plan. Describe what is included in each section.
2. Describe the steps in a typical process for purchasing equipment and services.
3. Describe a typical process for negotiating extensive client support contracts
4. What is a Service Level Agreement (SLA), and what are the key elements of SLA?
5. Discuss three typical requirements for a contract for products or services.
6. Which elements should a contract include for it to be legally binding?
7. Provide three examples of what could constitute an unfair contract term under consumer law.
8. Explain the purpose of an indemnification clause within a contract and service level agreement.
9. Review the procedure for commonwealth procurement at the following link:
10. Explain what probity is in an industry project procurement context and describe four features of a probity decision.
11. Explain three ways that project governance constraints can affect project procurement processes.

Assessment Task 2: Plan and undertake procurement processes

Task summary
In this assessment task, you are required to develop a procurement management plan for a case study organisation. When your plan has been approved, you will undertake several procurement processes as set out in your plan.

Carefully read the following:

You are the Operations Manager of Grow Management Consultants, a small consultancy company specialising in leadership development services. These include training for members of companies' management teams and providing networking opportunities to managers from a wide variety of companies. More detailed information is provided in Grow Management Consultants Company Information.

Currently, the company needs assistance in improving its website. They have a basic website, but it is due for an upgrade. Grow Management Consultants has two Administration Assistants who will need to be trained to maintain the website once it has been set up.

The company also wishes to improve its electronic communication processes. Although they do most of their work with their clients face-to-face, the company believes that it is through electronic media that effective business relationships are maintained in the long term, and the efficiency of the company's electronic communication is not what it could be.

You have been appointed Project Manager for the website upgrade and communication overhaul, which has been given a budget of $14,000.

The company's senior Management team recognises the importance of the project for the company and acknowledges that it represents a large investment for the company. The team has requested that a procurement management plan be developed for this project, in collaboration with the company's Chief Financial Officer. The Senior Management Team will serve as the project's Steering Group

Complete the following activities:

1. Meet with project stakeholders
The purpose of the meeting is to determine what will be required of the new website, which you will use as a basis for the project's procurement planning.

Prepare for the meeting by reviewing the following documents:
• Grow Management Consultants Code of Ethics
• Grow Management Consultants Company Information
• Grow Management Consultants Strategic Plan
• Project Management Policy and Procedures

After the meeting, you will be required to develop a procurement management plan in collaboration with the CFO, so review the Procurement Management Plan Template prior to the meeting to help guide your discussions with the stakeholders.

During the meeting, you are required to demonstrate effective communication skills including:
• Speaking clearly and concisely
• Using non-verbal communication to assist with understanding
• Asking questions to identify required information
• Responding to questions as required
• Using active listening techniques to confirm understanding

2. Develop a procurement management plan
You are required to develop a plan that will guide Grow Management Consultants' website upgrade project.

Your plan should include the following:

Use the Procurement Management Plan Template to guide your work.

You will be reviewing your plan to accommodate the company's Chief Financial Officer's input, so save this version of the document as Draft Procurement Management Plan.

3. Send an email to the Chief Financial Officer (your assessor).
The text of the email should be in grammatically correct English, written in an appropriate (polite, business-like) style.
It should introduce and summarise the contents of the attachment and ask for their feedback and approval to move forward with the project.

4. Revise your procurement management plan
Update your plan to reflect the feedback given to you by the company's Chief Financial Officer.

Save this version of the document as Procurement Management Plan

5. Send an email to the Senior Management Team (your assessor).
The text of the email should be in grammatically correct English, written in an appropriate (polite, business-like) style.

It should introduce and summarise the contents of the attachment and ask for their feedback and approval to move forward with the project.

Attach your Procurement Management Plan to the email.

6. Write an email to prospective vendors
The email should set out the project requirements and the conditions under which the project will be carried out.
The text of the email should be in grammatically correct English, written in an appropriate (polite, business-like) style.

It should introduce the project requirements and give a summary of the project's specifications and objectives
The email text should also clarify the vendor selection process

Ask the vendors to send a bid within two weeks.

7. Select vendor.
Keeping in mind the ethical considerations set out in the company's Code of Ethics, you are required to determine which vendor to use on the project.

Review the following bids that have been received:
• IT Biz Solutions Bid
• IT Biz Solutions Services and Fees
• ICT World Bid
• Online Business Partners Bid

A review of the responding vendors' websites produced the following quality assessments:
• IT Biz Solutions: professional, high quality images and text.
• ICT World: stock photos used only. Text is rambling.
• Online Business Partners: mostly images of the company's directors. No references to client's websites to evaluate. Text uses much hyperbole.

A review of the vendors' websites also produced the following ethical assessments:
• IT Biz Solutions: supports workplace sustainability actions. Uses 2% of annual profits to support international charities.
• ICT World: commitment made to reduce physical resources use through the development of electronic communication only.
• Online Business Partners: no ethical commitments evident from website.

Use the information above to determine which vendor to use.

8. Send an email to the Senior Management Team (your assessor).
The text of the email should be in grammatically correct English, written in an appropriate (polite, business-like) style.

As the vendor selection is an important decision that affects the whole project, vendor selection should be verified by the Project Steering Group.

Your email should give a summary of the vendors' bids and give the reasons for vendor preference. Identify the vendor selection criteria set out in the Procurement Management Plan and justify your selection with reference to these. Also identify another two criteria that could be used to select vendors in this situation, and rate the bids based on these, too.

The email text should ask for their authorisation to open up negotiations with the preferred vendor.

9. Send an email to the unsuccessful vendors (your assessor).
The text of the email should be in grammatically correct English, written in an appropriate (polite, business-like) style.

It should inform them that their bid has not been successful and summarise the reasons for this.

10. Send an email to the successful vendor (your assessor).
The text of the email should be in grammatically correct English, written in an appropriate (polite, business-like) style.

This email is your opportunity to negotiate the bid with the vendor.
Consider which aspect(s) of their bid could be improved and give justification for the request(s).

Request the vendor to give their response to your request.

11. Send an email to the Senior Management Team (your assessor).
When you have heard back from the preferred vendor, you should communicate the result of your negotiations with the Project Steering Group.

Assessment Task 3 Cover Sheet

Carefully read the following:

The Vendor Contract has been exchanged, and work began on the website two weeks ago.

As part of IT Biz Solutions' standard project management procedures, you have received the following emails from the project's team leaders:

Dear Project Manager.

The website is progressing well. The home page has received approval, and our current focus is on collating the information and images that are needed for the rest of the website. We are on schedule to finish the project on time.

The company management appointed several Administration Assistants to assist us in collecting the information that we need, and they have done this very well. They are a busy team, but well organised.

I have held the second hour-long training session for these staff, as they have been appointed to maintain the website after it has been set up. Although they are certainly capable of performing these functions, I am not sure that the expectation will be fulfilled. Namely, the staff are already working at capacity, and seem to resent this extra work being put on them. It appears as though their administrative tasks are many and varied, and they much prefer the more customer-contact work that they otherwise undertake.

But, as I stated earlier, they have been very helpful with information collection, and they are very much behind the work that we are doing here. It just appears as though website maintenance is outside what they can manage now.

If you have any questions about this, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Regards,

Website Team Leader.

Complete the following activities:

1. Write a procurement status report.
In accordance with procurement procedures, any changes to procurement contracts and agreements need the support of the Project Steering Group.

Your report should include the current status of the project as well as the issues that have arisen.
For any issues, you should give workable suggestions as to how these can be resolved.

Your status report should be about half a page long.

2. Send an email to the Project Steering Group (your assessor).
The text of the email should be in grammatically correct English, written in an appropriate (polite, business-like) style.

It should introduce and summarise the contents of the attachment and ask for their feedback and authorisation for changes to the project's budget.

Attach your Procurement Status Report to the email.

3. Revise vendor contract
When you have received authorisation from the Project Steering Group, revise the Vendor Contract to reflect your suggested changes.

Highlight your changes in yellow
Save this version of the contract as Revised Vendor Contract

4. Send an email to the vendor (your assessor).
The text of the email should be in grammatically correct English, written in an appropriate (polite, business-like) style.

It should summarise the issue they have raised and the solution that you have come to.
Ask them to read through the revised contract and give you their opinion of the changes you suggest.

Assessment Task 4: Procurement procedures finalisation

Task summary
You are required to finalise the project's procurement processes, which includes writing a report on the effectiveness of their Procurement Management Plan.

Complete the following activities:

Grow Management Consultants' new website has been online for one month, and it has been a great success.
The same design has been applied to the company's emails, and the new email and communication system is functioning very well. All staff are using the new system without assistance.

You have received the following email from IT Biz Solutions

Dear Project Manager

With the website and the new communication system up and running, and although IT Bis Solutions will be maintaining the website for the next five months, it is time for me to give you a report on the project's progress.
As you will be aware, the new website has been very well received.
It is functioning well at all levels, and we have heard nothing but praise for its design.

What has become apparent, however, is that most of your company's hardware is not quite up to the job being asked of it. It is managing okay at this stage, but several of your workstations are too old to use most of the new communication system's functions. Also, most of the consultant's work laptops are so heavy that they don't take them with them when they visit clients: they take their private laptop, which is not a very secure practice.

Your server is just handling the increased traffic, but that should be reviewed in another month or so. This will most likely have to be replaced, too.

Naturally, IT Biz would like to make a bid on providing the needed equipment and installing it for Grow Management Consultants, but that is not why I have made the observations above. Your company needs to update its ICT hardware to keep up with the new website and communication systems, or the work we have done in this project won't be working optimally unless that is done.

In hindsight, it would have been good for us to evaluate your hardware as part of the contract negotiations, but it was not part of the original call for tender, so we just worked around it. If the issue was recognised earlier, we could have updated your software and hardware at the same time, which would have been much more economical than doing it in two steps.

Otherwise, we are very pleased with how the project has turned out and hope to continue to work together in the future.

Regards,
Project Manager
IT Biz Solutions

You are required to complete and submit a report on the project's procurement procedures as part of the project closure activities.

Complete the following activities:

12. Write a procurement closure report
As set out in the Grow Management Consultants' Project Management Policy and Procedures, you are required to write a report that includes the following:
• A review of project outcomes with respect to the effectiveness of procurement procedures as set out in the Procurement Management Plan
• At least two procurement management or processes lessons learned during the project
• Recommended at least two improvements to in procurement management or processes that could benefit future projects.

Use the Procurement Closure Report Template to guide your work.

13. Send an email to the Project Steering Group (your assessor).
The text of the email should be in grammatically correct English, written in an appropriate (polite, business-like) style.

It should introduce and summarise the contents of the attachment and ask for their approval of the closure document.

Attachment:- Manage project procurement.rar