Project Management - reality bites

The success of a battle is determined by the way it is conducted. Projects usually imply the coming together of human resources, process and technology in a manner so as to achieve an end objective. Having managed a couple of technology projects, I am outlining a couple of simple principles that any project manager would do well to heed.
1) Never compromise on the quality of the human resources who are going to deliver the project. Insist on independent verifiable references and a personal interview of the members of the project team. Always insist on demonstrated capabilities from vendors. Always include reference calls with vendor's clients as part of the decision matric
2) Insist on a product liability insurance from the vendor/implementation partner - lots of companies in the US insist on this before implementing an IT project
3) Insist on a steering committee and project committee with appropriate representation from business and business sponsor. Insist that they meet up every fortnight and week respectively. Insist on free and fair feedback. Insist on reconciliation of observations with time-lines
4) Insist on sign-offs from business team before implementation commences
5) Ensure that the development is as per the PDCA cycle, include prototypes as a compulsory part of the development life-cycle
6) Hold the development team responsible for all quality related aspects
7) Perform QA check of stage-wise deliverables at every milestone. Ensure the QA check is verified by client personnel
8) Never let over-zealous business stake-holders influence project scope at any stage
9) Before start of a technology project out-line dependencies on departments, difficult to reach/manage people, technologies and agree a buffer time with the client
10) Insist on penalties/bonus structure between client and implementation partner - to incentivise/punish early/late delivery of project
11) Insist on an internal PM from the Implementation Partner, to handle intra team , deadlines, status calls. This technical PM should act as SPOC between the Project Delivery Manager and the development team. This avoids confusion and the very prevalent "chinese whispers" issue