- Chapter 31: Working with Consultants
- Working with Consultants
- What Are Your Needs?
- Project Manager and Leadership
- Selecting Individual Consultants
- Work Ethic and Attitude
- Large-Scale Project Team Structure
- Preparation for Consultant: Contracts
- Preparation for Consultant: Rates and Fees
- Preparation for Consultant: Fixed-Price Contracts
- Controlling Consulting Project Costs: Change Managementx
- Controlling Consulting Project Costs: Client Involvement
- Controlling Consulting Project Costs: Reviewing the Original Requirements
- Controlling Consulting Project Costs: Weekly Status Reports
- Controlling Consulting Project Costs: Risk and Issues Log
- Controlling Consulting Project Costs: Importance of Database Administrator
- Consulting Work Environment
- Consultant Travel and Costs
- Case Studies of Consultant Behavior
- Case Studies of Client Behavior
- Summary
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Preparation for Consultant: Contracts
Every company and industry has different legal requirements. Nevertheless, in preparing contracts for consultants, following are a few suggestions to aid the contract preparation process. Throughout the process, remember that you are entering into a partnering relationship on the project. Clearly, your main goal is to protect your company's interests. A good contract should be able to protect both your and the consulting company's interests. DISCLAIMER: Please consult with your legal department before following the suggestions outlined in this section:
Termination—Identify clear rules for termination of the project both for Cause and Not for Cause. Design these rules so that they apply equally to both parties. If one party must provide x weeks of notice to terminate a contract, the other party must maintain the same standards.
Relationship—Although the spirit of the working relationship should be a partnering relationship, the terminology in the contract should clearly state this contract does not constitute a partnership or joint venture. You do not want to open your risk to include the bad decisions of your consulting organization.
Confidentiality—Your confidential material must be protected. Ensure that the contract clearly identifies confidentiality. In some cases, there might be need for confidentiality to protect the consulting organization's proprietary tools as well.
Ownership—Oracle Applications Consultants are in the software business. Generally, the client is not. As SQL scripts and project plans are prepared, they should generally remain in the ownership of the consulting company (although joint ownership is also an option). After all, your project should have the opportunity to benefit from other companies' past projects. You are already protected by confidentiality so ownership of the tools and methods should be less of an issue to the client. If a client requires sole ownership of all project deliverables, prepare for increased project costs without the benefit of the increased expenditures. In this situation, the consultant should start all project plan tasks from scratch and not reuse past scripts, technical design documents, project plans, and so on. When used, their ownership rights have been transferred to the client, so the consultant should prepare to reinvent the wheel from scratch.
Work Requests—Even if an overall Services Agreement exists between the two companies, it is advisable to have additional Work Orders or Work Requests that address every single consultant on the project. If any specific arrangements need to be applied to a particular consultant or group of consultants, they can be addressed in the Work Request without compromising the overall Services Agreement.