ABSTRACT
Managing contracts is one of the hardest and yet most valuable skills required for procurement and commercial practitioners. Too often procurement has been seen as the ‘knock it up and run’ profession that focuses just on sourcing suppliers and awarding contracts only to leave the management of the contract to others in the organisation. The Contract Management Cycle demonstrates the natural lifecycle progression of activities that a contract manager needs to work through when managing a contract and it applies universally across a wide range of contract types. The Contract Management Cycle encapsulates the full roles and responsibilities of a contract manager and helps to illustrate these in a simple process diagram. The Cycle is a useful listing of activities and helpful for stakeholders to discuss and agree on who does what, however it does not provide any guidance on how better performance from contracts can be delivered.
