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Project Procurement Management includes the processes required to acquire goods and services, to attain project scope from outside the performing organization. For simplicity, goods and services, whether one or many, will generally be referred to as a product. Figure 12–1 provides an overview of the following major processes:

	Procurement Planning — determining what to procure and when.
	Solicitation Planning — documenting product requirements and identifying potential sources.
	Solicitation — obtaining quotations, bids, offers, or proposals as appropriate.
	Source Selection — choosing from among potential sellers.
	Contract Administration — managing the relationship with the seller.
	Contract Close-out — completion and settlement of the contract, including resolution of any open items.

  These processes interact with each other and with the processes in the other knowledge areas as well. Each process may involve effort from one or more individuals or groups of individuals, based on the needs of the project. Although the processes are presented here as discrete elements with well-defined interfaces, in practice they may overlap and interact in ways not detailed here. Process interactions are discussed in detail in Chapter 3, Project Management Processes.
  Project Procurement Management is discussed from the perspective of the buyer in the buyer-seller relationship. The buyer-seller relationship can exist at many levels on one project. Depending on the application area, the seller may be called a subcontractor, a vendor, or a supplier.
  The seller will typically manage their work as a project. In such cases:

   The buyer becomes the customer and is thus a key stakeholder for the seller.

   The seller’s project management team must be concerned with all the processes of project management, not just with those of this knowledge area.

   The terms and conditions of the contract become a key input to many of the seller’s processes. The contract may actually contain the input (e.g., major deliverables, key milestones, cost objectives) or it may limit the project team’s options (e.g., buyer approval of staffing decisions is often required on design projects).

  This chapter assumes that the seller is external to the performing organization. Most of the discussion, however, is equally applicable to formal agreements entered into with other units of the performing organization. When informal agreements are involved, the processes described in Project Human Resource Management, Chapter 9, and Project Communications Management, Chapter 10, are more likely to apply.