Effectively Managing Professional Services Contracts: 12 Best Practices

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By

Sandra L. Fisher

Assistant Professor of Organizational Studies

Clarkson University School of Business sfisher@clarkson.edu

Paige Wolf, Ph.D., SPHR

Director of Graduate Programs & Associate Professor of Management

George Mason University School of Management pwolf1@gmu.edu

Michael Wasserman

Associate Dean

Clarkson University School of Business Undergraduate Programs & Administration mwasserm@clarkson.edu

This report is targeted to the growing pool of government managers who are responsible for managing professional services contracts. It gleans a dozen best practices, based on real-world experience, currently used by successful managers across the government. A major theme of these experiences is the importance of creating a more effective working relationship-much more like a partnership than the traditional adversarial relationship-between the project officer, the contract manager, and the contractor. The report is also aimed at the government contractor community, which is learning how to participate in working relationships in new ways. Contracting

Effectively Managing Professional Services Contracts: 12 Best Practices