Upskilling council staff to avoid having to employ external project managers for major developments was one idea floated by a Warrnambool councillor on Monday.
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During debate on an update to the council's project management policy, Cr Mike Neoh said the council invested millions of dollars on projects and it was time to look to existing staff to head up management of those rather than paying external staff.
"Can we invest in professional development for our middle management so, in terms of succession planning, if we lose someone or, rather than go for a project manager every time we advertise for a project, we might be able to use in-house staff," Cr Neoh said.
"It would be really good to have a structured professional development pathway so that most of our managers can become really good project managers and we don't have to go externally all the time."
The policy update will be put out for public comment.
Cr Neoh said the policy also highlighted the scope of briefs and agreements.
He said while there was no such thing as a watertight agreement, they needed to be as watertight as possible to make sure the council wasn't hit by too many variations.
"Obviously you can't always mitigate against all variations, but part of the project management is to ensure the agreement and the brief and tender documents are clear before we build or implement a project," he said.
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