Engineering contracts - Appendix 2: Technical provisions (part 1)

Like any contract, the project management contract must specify, particularly in technical terms, what is to be done, how it is to be done and when it is to be done:

• The Program describes what needs to be done;

• The technical lots describe the parts of the program for which the project manager is responsible;

• The Phases of execution of the project management contract describe the tasks to be performed by the parties and the order in which they are to be carried out;

• the duties of the customer and third parties make it possible to list the activities outside the project management team that are enforceable against it;

• the Project organization structure describes the human organization of the Project;

• the Project's provisional schedule describes its temporal organization.

The last three points are classic. They are not specific to project management contracts, and can be found in all types of contracts. On the other hand, the first three points are highly specific to investment projects. Non-specialists in the field would call them specifications: this is clearly the case for prime contractors.

Particular attention was paid to identifying the basic concepts to be known in technical matters, so as to share a common language that enables everyone to understand the same thing. In our experience, project failure is all too often the result of mutual incomprehension. Technical execution provisions are the subject of . The financial provisions (Appendix 3) are dealt with in .