Be sure to make a project organisation chart.

• Helps with assigning responsibilities
• Helps new team members identify the roles of the rest of the team and who to talk to for their tasks.
• Makes communication between team members easier.

Ideally list contact details in the chart as well.

Keep up to date (this is better if done automatically).

It wastes a lot of time in a big project trying to find someone only to discover they are not on the team anymore, so this is an important task.

Tagged with: contacts • organisation chart • responsibilities • rolse

Filed under: Human Resources • Planning

Keep the central internal project contact list up to date.

This should be a company wide database that is frequently updated with the names, positions and roles of each employee and the project they are associated with.
The user should be able to open a page by project name and it would list each person on that project team and their role.
This makes it easy for anyone new to the project to look up who is responsible or contactable for what.

It should be at minimum editable by the project manager, project office, section managers (e.g. design manager for that project).

Tagged with: contacts • project personnel

Filed under: Communication • Human Resources

Make sure your company has a good system to record contacts information. This should include:

• Clients
• Suppliers
• Contractors
• Industry contacts.

Everything known about the contact should be able to be put in to the system.

• Name
• Address
• Phone
• Fax
• Email
• Industry
• Status (client, supplier contractor)
• Special expertise
• Reliability
• Comments on the contact
• Meetings
• Sales made to them
• Items or services bought from them
• Phone conversations
• Correspondence
• Their promotional literature

You should be able to have an entry for the company and a separate entry for each employee of the company.

You should be able to sort people or companies by:

• Industry
• Geographic location
• Expertise
• Potential clients
• Top list (most reliable suppliers or preferred suppliers)
• What they sell (multiple entries can each be searched, e.g. pumps, valves, compressors, concreting, signals design, etc). This information is useful for sales but it is also important for project managers, who might need to find a reliable supplier quickly without having to call around a lot of people.

A folder of business cards is not good enough. It is only available to the person who knows about it, it cannot be searched quickly, and it relies on remembering details about the contact. As soon as a contact is made, the details should be added to the database, ideally by the person who made contact. All employees, in particular sales, procurement and project managers should be encouraged to add to and use the system. A summary printout of the contact should be possible.

The database should be kept private (within the company) as ratings on reliability etc could embarrass or anger the contact if it ever got to them.

Tagged with: address book • contacts • database

Filed under: Communication • Documentation • Human Resources • Marketing

Keep track of and in contact with colleagues, former colleagues, industry contacts, old friends in similar or related industries, clients, former clients, uni friends, etc.

This can help getting introductions, building trust for new projects, and save you time getting information.

When you have a good relationship with these people, you can comfortably call them for specialized information (availability of resources, upcoming projects, advice etc).

You are not aiming for inside or illegal information, just smooth and easy discussion of things that would take you a lot more work to find out otherwise.

Tagged with: contacts • information • introductions • trust

Filed under: Communication

Recognize when you or your team don’t have the expertise to accomplish something and get help.

This could be either within the company or from outside experts.

Check with internal experienced people first for contacts.

When buying specialized equipment, make sure the supplier is available for installation advice and commissioning assistance (It is often preferable to get them to commission)

Tagged with: commissioning • contacts • equipment • expertise • experts • installation • supplier

Filed under: Procurement