Accountability

A case

A customer put out a tender for a large project. Once the evaluation of all the submitted bids had been completed, the Project Manager wrote up his Executive Summary for senior management's consideration and approval.

The procurement manager decided to override his recommendation and gave the project to a new untested supplier.

The damage

18 months into the project, the supplier was falling behind and basically admitted they could not complete the project - never mind coming in on schedule. This forced the company to re-allocate the remainder of the project to the supplier that the PM had originally recommended at a hugely inflated cost. As the procurement manager had also not followed the contract terms fully, the cancellation meant they had no recourse in recovering any of the expenditure already incurred. At this point the CEO called in the Project Manager and started berating him for all these mistakes.

The solution

Fortunately for the PM, he had documented all his recommendations and there was a comprehensive audit trail showing who had overridden his recommendations and who had cancelled the contract incorrectly, etc. This literally saved his position and held the actual culprit accountable. So document, document, document everything - it may just save your butt.

iSpec's audit trail is one of the most comprehensive in the industry.

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