Contracting Strategy Workshop

Develop the Right Contract Strategy to Achieve Your Project’s Goals

Independent Project Analysis (IPA) data show that problems with contracting strategies are often the root cause of project failure, resulting in months to years of schedule delays and millions in cost overruns. Owner project teams often lack the unbiased data and clear processes needed to guide contract strategy selection. The Contracting Strategy Workshop brings both IPA’s data and experience to assist your project team in designing a fit-for-purpose contracting strategy and implementation plan to set your project up for success.

Key Benefits

• Develop a detailed contract strategy and an implementation plan designed specifically to help achieve your project’s goals
• Optimize resources and risk mitigation to best support the contracting strategy
• Learn from IPA’s extensive research on contracting strategy development and selection

What Is a Contracting Strategy?

When a manufacturer or resource development company decides to build a new facility or refurbish an existing facility, these organizations typically outsource the engineering and construction work to contractor firms. The contracting strategy is the process of determining how the contractors and vendors will be selected, how they will be paid, how much work any one contractor will do on the project, and the terms and conditions under which the work will be done. This is one of the most difficult elements of project management, even for mature project systems.

Workshop Topics

• Clarify the business and project objectives
• Establish the context of the proposed projects
• Summarize the key elements of a contracting strategy and build inventory of both common and unusual strategies for consideration
• Review IPA’s findings concerning the relationship between contracting project outcomes advantages and disadvantages
• Facilitated Working Session:
  -Breakout groups consider available options considering the project objectives and context
  -Compare proposed strategies
  -Reconcile and arrive at consensus support with detailed justification
• Design a path forward and assign responsibilities

Workshop Duration

Half day to 2 days, dependent on the complexity of the proposed project.

Develop Your Contract Strategy With IPA’s Data and Expertise

The Contracting Strategy Workshop is a facilitated working session that leads the core project team through the process to develop and select the most optimal contract strategy for a specific capital project. The workshop lessons and materials are based on IPA’s extensive research and observations from over 35 years of capital project benchmarking.

When to Conduct the Workshop

The Contracting Strategy Workshop is most effective when conducted in early Front-End Loading (FEL) before the project scope and execution strategy has been defined.

Industrial Sectors

The Contracting Strategy Workshop is available to owner firms across industrial sectors. Key sectors include, but are not limited to:

• Chemicals
• Energy (Oil, Gas, Power, & Renewables)
• Food & Consumer Products
• Hydrocarbon Processing & Transportation
• Infrastructure
• Life Sciences
• Mining, Minerals, & Metals
• Power Generation & Transmission
• Pulp & Paper

More Information

Download the course brochure for more info.