Virtual Teams and Vendor/Partner Management

Being on the same project team no longer requires being in the same building, or the same company, or even the same continent. Whether you're folding in team members from other time zones or managing outsourced teams impacting your project, these templates will help you keep things under control and keep the information flowing. Our Virtual Team Know-How page has additional resources for distributed teams, including mini-courses and papers that can help you solve typical problems.

• Web Conferencing Planning Activities
  This guideline walks you step-by-step through creating a realistic work breakdown for your online event, including often-overlooked tasks like presenter training and follow-up communications.
• Consulting Contract Guidelines and Examples
  Guidelines for creating consulting contracts, including typical information covered (work description, payment terms, intellectual property ownership) and two sample contracts. For project contractors, consultants, or the project managers or functional managers hiring them.
• Licensing Project Management Guidelines
  Guidelines for how to manage a project where one company is licensing another company's product or technology to incorporate into their own product development effort.
• Partner Contract Guidelines
  When outside partners are employed to execute part or all of a project, the contract with that partner is critical for defining expectations, due dates, and responsibilities. This template provides guidelines for typical contents for such contracts.
• RFP for Training Program Development
  Streamline the provider selection process using this template for a Training Program Request for Proposal (RFP). A comprehensive RFP will help you gain clarity and alignment on the real goals of your training program, and will make sifting through offerings and choosing an appropriate vendor easier on your selection committee.
• Guideline for Deciding Whether to Outsource Work on a Project
  Make sure you know what you'll really get, what you'd be getting into, and whether it really makes sense to use outsourcing on this project.
• Vendor assessment checklist
  A set of questions to ask a company or contract resource you're thinking of hiring for your project. The questions are aimed at ensuring you have a common understanding and good fit in goals, skills and experience, processes, and priorities. Avoid disaster! Choose your partner well.
• IT Project Request for Proposal
  A detailed, boilerplate template for an IT Request for Proposal (RFP) submitted by an Australian IT project manager. Color-coding separates pre-approved legalese from project-specific clauses, and File Properties are used as text fields to automatically include some high level project information and contacts.
• New System Request for Proposal (RFP) Outline
  A comprehensive RFP template for new systems proposal requests, along with guidelines for RFP success and detailed annotations. Customize this template to fit your software system or co-development project and shave weeks off your RFP selection time.