Contracts which are actively managed for specified performance objectives are most likely to achieve desired results. The Contract Management Budget Request Guideline FY 1998-1999 defines contract management responsibility, authority and accountability within an organization and identifies best practices for contract management. Resource management Resource management includes evaluating available and planned additions to manpower resources against available and qualified organizational staffing to assure that manpower resource needs are met by the most economical mix of accessible, experienced consultant and contractor personnel. Resource management also requires the review and evaluation of new tasks and changes in existing tasks to assure that increases or decreases in task cost and schedule are acceptable and are appropriately approved. Quality assurance Planning for and implementing quality assurance throughout the life of the project is critical to project success.
Several tools are available to help with quality assurance.
Walkthroughs, reviews and inspections serve as quality assurance tools during system development and should be performed for all project deliverables. A deliverable is a product that has been rigorously defined and that meets the goal of an activity. A walkthrough is conducted to find errors, omissions, and ambiguities in a deliverable and to ensure conformance to an organization s standards. Walkthroughs can and should be performed on complete intermediate deliverables such as entity relationship models and file definitions. Review A formal and thorough examination of a deliverable which has been distributed beforehand to users, auditors and quality assurance staff.