20. Small, focussed and empowered negotiation teams work best. Before you enter into negotiations with the preferred bidder you must establish a clear demarcation of responsibility within the negotiation team and clear reporting lines to those ultimately involved in the approval process. It may be that you assign one person responsibility as "lead" negotiator (normally the IPT Leader) who will set out positions of principle and respond in kind, another as "right hand" who will ask questions and test assumptions (sometimes a role picked up by an external adviser although ideally the "right hand" should be an Authority individual who can step into the breach if needs be) and a third as secretary to record what has been agreed (more of which below). The key message is to settle on a modus operandi which plays to the strengths of your team (and those of your advisers) and which is consistent - letting lenders and preferred bidder know exactly who they should be addressing and thereby minimising the risk of mixed messages being transmitted in return. It is also useful to have an identified champion at executive director level who can step in if particularly problematic issues arise. To do so however requires a good communication and briefing strategy so that the director is fully in command of the relevant detail if called upon to assist. The IPT should, in any case, establish sensible reporting lines to ensure that there are no surprises for top level stakeholders involved in the approval process. Before involving anyone at director level the IPT should have exhausted all support groups (including PPFI) and perhaps the relevant section of the National Audit Office in an attempt to determine a satisfactory Authority position.
21. Meetings (more of which below) can, if not carefully managed, become unwieldy, unproductive and frustrating. Often, the best way to ensure that a meeting achieves its aims is to keep numbers down to the minimum required and the best way of establishing what the minimum number should be is to have analysed and planned what peoples' roles are well in advance. There really should only be three or four people on the IPT's side (including advisers) who are empowered to speak (uninvited) at any meeting and, even then, there should be one person tasked to deliver key messages. If that person is not available on any given day (and this will happen) then the team should identify whoever has picked up that role and confirm that the leader has delegated his authority accordingly (or confirm on what other basis the meeting can go forward). Team members must (where possible) commit to the project for the duration of the preferred bidder stage. If your IPT is at risk from loosing key people during this stage you must plan for and manage the succession process. During your initial scoping activity the IPT should also spend some time analysing the skill-set required for the next stage allocate tasks according the team's strengths (more on this in paragraph 38).