Contract Performance and Federal Government - Essay Example

Contract performance report Contract performance reports Analyze the contract performance reports required by the federal government and determine which is the most difficult to complete without error. Explain your rationale. The Federal government uses the contract performance reports to monitor and report earned value for projects. It has been applied for a long time on department of defense projects, and the Federal Acquisition Reports has demanded the application of contract performance projects related to information technology since 2006. Earned value management is a project management criterion that has been applied for many years to monitor, control and report schedules and costs of projects. In addition, contract performance report is the means of communication between program manager and the contractor to monitor and report the schedule and cost trends (United States of America, 2011). The federal government requires that CPR be submitted on monthly basis, and it should have information regarding technological investment whose cost is expected to be one million dollars or more via the end of the investment period whether it is for development maintenance or Steady state. The Federal government demands that the CPR reporting should start early once a work breakdown structure is carried out, and certainly by the start of integrated Baseline Review is finished. The CPR may be required to be presented to IBR’s affirmation of the contract proceeding, so that a broad investment level CPR can be finished for department of Defense and department of Health and Human services. The full investment-level CPR information is stored in the department of Health database and only department of Health wide area network who are accessible to it. Even the contractor personnel are not accessible to it. The CPR mainly target project team stakeholders, governance, technical, business and users of project products. It is therefore a requirement that Department of Health and Human Services submit its data to the management and Budget office on monthly basis. I think this is the most difficult to complete without error since it requires that the contractor gather and evaluate past information about the project. All information about the project might not be in the database or may have not been archived, which in turn makes information about the project conflict. According to United States of America (2011), for operations and maintenance projects, as well as new development projects, the CPR acts as an input to integrated baseline review (IBR) in that, during the IBR, the CPR is reviewed to ensure that it rhymes with work breakdown structure, budget and schedule. This gives room to government and contractor to examine and assess the readiness to begin work with assurance that all needed work will be under supervision of project team. Various stakeholders have different roles and responsibilities to ensure that the project begins and ends successfully without delays. For instance, the project manager ensures that CPR is well finished on monthly basis by project team. The project also examines and monitors the costs and schedules differences to spot early problems. This gives them time to use corrective actions in dealing with the problems. 2. The following is a list of best practices that would ensure the report identified above will be error free 1. It is important to carry out temporary evaluations and conducting customer satisfaction 2. Gathering past information in the database for use in award of future contracts 3. Using past performance as a tool to identify which contractor will get further consideration for the project 4. Conducting reviews and meetings with contractors having quality and performance tribulations 3. Identify possible difficulties in the closeout process and make recommendations for how they could be avoided During project closeout, some difficulties might arise. For instance, contractors may submit documents that are incomplete, which in turn consumes time during their re-submittal. More so, due to large amount of data, the information available is not current, which calls for the need for further research. Recommendations I would recommend that contractors and the government put in place a comprehensive system for tracking, monitoring and reporting closeout activities for the project on time. The contractor should update their update their database regularly so as to submit current information. 4. Analyze the project risk management section of PBMOK and make recommendations for improvement The project management body of knowledge is used for controlling risks. This model includes risk identification, risk management and planning, risk monitoring and control, qualitative analysis, risk response planning, and quantitative analysis (Stackpole, 2010). As the goal of the project is to produce unknown product, it usually involve risks since the steps involved to attain the targets are unknown by those in charge of project development. PBMOK method suggests that risk management plan should include budget, roles and responsibilities, and methodology because this model is generic and has a comprehensive scope. Identifying the risk is also important under PBMOK because the risk can either negatively or positively affect the project. The identified risks are qualitatively analyzed in order to evaluate the impact and probabilities of the existing risks. This therefore ensures that there is a complete list of prioritized risks and another list for additional risk analysis and management. In addition, the PMBOK’s method applies quantitative risk analysis that incorporates the impacts and calculation of probabilities for identified risks (Stackpole, 2010). The aftermath of this stage involves a probabilistic evaluation of project, prioritized risks and probability of attaining the goals of time, trends and costs in quantitative risk analysis results. This in turn helps project managers to assess and evaluate the impact of each identified risk. Risk response gathers information on positive and negative impact of risk on the project. Thereafter, these risks are incorporated into a report by rank of each risk involved (Stackpole, 2010). Risk monitoring and control would then aim to control risks involved in project management. Project team then examines and evaluates the items in order to get out of the negative risks. Recommendations I will recommend that the PBMOK model to stop relying on quantitative risk analysis because this criterion allows low adherence probabilistic analysis of the project. More so, this phase does not encompass evaluation of variables of cost and time. In this manner, the PBMOK model will not be efficient but when eliminated, it will work effectively. The PBMOK risk response should aim at taking corrective actions in order to maximize the opportunities and reduce threats, which might hinder the goals and objectives of the project. It should also consider contractual agreements, inputs for reviewed project and other processes. References United States of America. (2011). Federal contractors: better performance information needed to Support agency contract award decisions: report to congressional requesters. New York: Books LLC. Stackpole, C. (2010). Users Manual to the PMBOK Guide. New York: Wiley. Read More