Some projects are done entirely in-house. The business has all the tools and people it needs to get the final result that they want. Often, though, a project will need to bring in outside help – such as buying in equipment.

I’ve worked on some projects which have had major procurements as part of them. I don’t want to talk about the process of that procurement – that’s what procurement departments are for! But I do want to talk about how to handle your supplier once you have decided who it is.

With your internal project team, it is quite likely you won’t have line management responsibility for them. This is what makes your people skills so important in project management – you need to inspire and encourage without having the usual tools a manager does to back it up.

However, with an external supplier, you quite often have a lot of power over them. After all, the whole reason they are there (as far as they are concerned) is to get their invoice paid. If you control the money, you can control them.

But I really wouldn’t recommend this adversarial kind of mindset. Making it all about Us and Them isn’t going to help the project at all. That’s not to say there isn’t a time for that mindset – but that time is in the procurement process, when you are making sure you get the best value for money you can.

When I am bringing a supplier into the project, I really want to make them feel a part of the team. Firstly because they really are part of the team – they are supplying something you need to make the project successful, just like every other team member.

But more cynically, it’s also much easier to get the supplier to go the extra mile if they feel included in the team, if they have some emotional investment in making the project a success, if it is about more than just the money. I’ve had suppliers really push hard to solve problems for me – in one case even getting into trouble with his boss to manage it!

Finally, it just makes for a better working environment. Being inclusive makes the project more fun for everyone to work on, and a happy project team is often the successful project team.

What about you? How do you handle your suppliers? What tips and techniques have you used to get them to go the extra mile? Let me know!