Leadership Skills : Trust

Trust is a key leadership skill.  Without trust, you will find many blockers in your projects and find that teams will not optimally perform for you within the execution phase of your project.  Gaining trust from your senior stakeholders ensures that your project has the appropriate level of support from the business and provides you with a level of authorisation to  smooth out any political issues.

Supplier Contracts

One of the many pre-project, or early tasks for a project manager is to arrange the supplier contracts.  In the last two client assignments, I have had to find and secure contracts with a multitude of vendors for various provisions.  Some vendors have been used for consulting, others have supplied software and a few have supplied hardware.  Often, a client will have a preferred supplier list that you have to work with.  Sometimes the supplier list is constrictive and cannot deliver the required service or product, so you have to take a recommendation to the project steering committee to gain permission to pursue a new supplier.  This can cause delays, as the on-boarding process can take considerable time and effort, especially in larger companies and corporations.