Marginalia

• The Organizational Process Assets in this context refer to "[...] formal policies that affect the evaluation of proposals" (comp. PMBOK3, p. 287)

• Here we meet the other end of one of the hen and egg problems in the PMBOK®: The process Activity Resource Estimating requires the Resource Availability as input, which is generated by the processes Acquire Project Team and Select Sellers. But these both processes themselves are requiring the output of Cost Budgeting which itself requires the output of the process Activity Duration Estimating and also the output of this process Activity Resource Estimating. Hence there exists a loop. We assume, that the processes Acquire Project Team and Select Sellers which are members of the Executing Process Group must be the successors because normally the execution follows the planning.

(9.4) Select Sellers

(9.4.1) Process Input

... generated by predecessor processes

... introduced by external units

  • Organizational Process Assets

(9.4.2) Process Definition

Select Sellers is the process for "[...] reviewing offers, choosing among potential sellers, and negotiating written contract with each seller"  (comp. PMBOK3, p. 269): this process "[...] receives bids or proposals and applies evaluation criteria, as applicable, to select one or more sellers who are both qualified and acceptable as a seller". Factors in nuce are price and adequacy.. (comp. PMBOK3, p. 286):

The subject Procurement Management operates on the base of other contracts concerning concepts

(9.4.3) Tools and Techniques

PMBOK Mentioned Methods

  • Weighting system is "[...] a method for quantifying qualitative data to minimize the effect of personal prejudice on seller selection" 
  • Indipendent estimates are used to compare the offered price by the own estimates
  • Screening system is a more or less raw system of "minimum requirements of performance" and is "[...] used to provide a weighted ranking from best to worst for all sellers who submitted a proposal"
  • Contract negotiation "[...] clarifies the structure and the requirements of the contract so that mutual agreement can be reached prior to signing the contract"
  • Seller rating system is an historically based system for evaluating sellers.
  • Expert judgement is multiply used, for example by the generation of indipendent estimates
  • Proposal evaluation techniques are already established techniques. The can be very different, "[...] but all will use some expert judgement and some form of evaluation criteria"

(comp. PMBOK3, p. 288).

Open Source Tools

  • NN

(9.4.4) Process Output

  • The Selected Sellers build the list of those sellers, "[...] who have been judged to be in a competitive range [...] and who have negotiated a draft contract, which will be the actual contract when an award is made"
  • The Contract is the document, which connects buyer and seller; "a contract is a mutually binding legal agreement that obligates the seller to provide the specific products, services, or results, and obligates the buyer to pay the seller". Therefore a specific "[...] contract is awarded to each selected seller"
  • The Contract Management Plan describes by whom and how the contract will be administered with respect to changes and confirmations
  • The Resource Availability is described with respect to quantity and availability
  • Updates of the Procurement Management Plan are generated by changes that affect the procurement management
  • Requested Changes can be evoked by the selected seller his contract and the approved statement of work

(comp. PMBOK3, pp. 289f)

(9.4.5) Output Using Successor Processes 

Successors using the initially generated output as own input(1):

Processes using the updates as input(2):

  1. For details see FAQ::Q001:1
  2. For details see FAQ::Q001:2