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Contract administration : personnel, workload, and processes -- Integrated project management (IPM) discipline -- Opportunity and risk management -- Contract changes management -- Contract financing, payment, and profitability -- Contract claims and dispute resolution -- Managing subcontracts : challenges and best practices -- Government property management : challenges and best practices -- Earned value management systems (EVMS) -- How it all ends : contract terminations and closeout -- Mitigating the risk of litigation -- Contract interpretation, U.S. government contracts policies, reviews and audits -- The future of contract administration : purpose driven governance -- Contract administration practical insights - lessons learned & best practices -- Serving as an expert witness in U.S. government contracts.

Part two of this three-part article series discusses the "Contract Management Maturity Model" and using the assessment results to develop a road map for continuously improving organizational contract management process maturity for U.S. federal government agencies, government contractors, and subcontractors.

Managing and controlling contract changes is on of the major challenges of post-award contract and subcontract management, requiring extensive process integration as well as communication among the project management and supply chain management team members. This article focuses specifically on managing and controlling the contract change process as a part of contract and subcontract administration. We will describe a six-step contract change management process that can be effectively applied and tailored for the joint use of U.S. government agencies, government prime contractors, and subcontractors. Successful management of contract and subcontract changes can reduce costs, ensure on-time delivery of products and services, increase performance results, and enhance customer satisfaction.

U.S. government agencies often struggle to clearly and concisely identify, communicate, and document their contract requirements to government contractors due to numerous factors, including; evolving technologies, urgent national security issues, re-prioritization of needs, changing funding profiles, acceleration and/or delay of the program schedule, political pressures, etc. In addition, the complexity of many U.S. government contracts and related projects requires numerous parties to be involved from a variety of functional areas, resulting in frequent miscommunication, wrongful interpretations, and/or unauthorized contract changes. Thus, the task of managing contract changes post-award becomes an increasingly daunting duty.