Contract Management and Administration Training Course
Duration
2 days
What is this course about?
No contract will be successful unless - it is under-pinned by sound contract management and administration. More often than not it is the support team involved in the background of a contract that ensures it is a success. This course will help you to understand how the effective management and administration of a contract can deliver the goals it set out to achieve.
Who would benefit?
Project and contract managers and engineers, those involved in setting up or running contracts, purchasing, sales and commercial / contracts people.
Objectives
This course will help delegates:
- Understand the contribution that contract administration can deliver
- Minimise contractual risk
- Understand Intellectual Property Rights
- Negotiate more effectively
- Understand Terms and Conditions
Key topics covered
1. Professional contract administration
- Company objectives
- Commercial awareness
- Commercial management
- Personal relationships
- Vital skills and expertise
- Deciding the right priorities
2. Understanding the legal environment
- Basic legal principles
- Risks for a valid contract
- Conditions and warranties
- Making the contract
- Offer and acceptance
- Enquiries and tenders
- Statute law affecting contracts
- Defects, negligence and lateness
3. Risks, rules and relationships
- Risk analysis
- Political, environmental and physical factors
- Financial and technical risks
- Pre-contract risk planning
- Post-contract risk management
- Off-loading or sharing risk
4. Improving your drafting skills
- Drafting starts with effective thinking
- The key objective
- Communication and the barriers to overcome
- The craft of contract drafting
- Closing loopholes
- Defined terms; precise language
- The specific and the general
- Dealing with sub-contractors
- Termination clauses
- Traps for the unwary
5. Some contract scenarios
- Model conditions of contract
- The enquiry and the bid
- Time and materials
- Fixed price
- Limits of liability
- Bills of quantity
- Pricing or associated costs
6. Contract terms and conditions
- How to deal with the 'small print'
- Consortia, joint ventures and collaborations
- Choices of law and jurisdiction
- Force majeure and its implications
- Time is of the essence
- What's on the back of the purchase order
- Ways of arguing over terms
7. Intellectual property rights
- Key concepts
- Patent rights
- Industrial design
- Copyright
- Trade marks
- Know-how
- Licensing and policing the rights
8. Effective administration techniques
- What is the purpose of the contracts function?
- The extent of its involvement; what is needed
- The culture of the enterprise
- Terms of reference
- Early warning systems
- Some maxims of contract administration
- Post mortems
- Getting known and respected
9. Sharpening your negotiating skills
- Who are the best negotiators?
- The chain of negotiating
- What do we negotiate about?
- Essentials of negotiation
- 'Hard vs soft'
- The principal negotiator
- Negotiating in teams
- Planning to negotiate
10. The keys to contract control
- The targets to aim for
- The system
- The importance of record keeping
- How to deal with trouble
