How to Streamline Contract Delivery Part 1: Process

In this post, we talk about process changes. These changes can make a big difference and help alleviate the pressures on legal, procurement and contracting teams. The changes are practical and won’t take a lot of time or cost a lot of money. Process changes are usually the easiest to implement and can have a significant impact on the bigger contracting picture.

Step 1: Map your current processes.

Start with gaining a proper understanding of how things actually work in your organisation. This is the key starting point for any changes that you may want to make. It will help uncover valuable information about what is working and what needs improvement. Ask practical questions, like: What is causing delays in the process? What is frustrating for the contracting team? What is genuinely adding value to the business? What is protecting against real risks? Where are the bottlenecks?

Mapping your processes in diagrammatic form will help you to step back and see the process as a whole. This information is key in helping you assess what you need to cut, change, or add. If you have some budget for this, a consultant or a legal ops specialist can help.

Step 2: Create a single intake process.

An intake process channels every instruction through a single point of entry. It asks questions at the outset which collects all the necessary information. A successful intake process enables the contracting team to understand the full details of the instruction up front – a complete instruction - so that the team can take the contract forward.

When creating an intake process, it is important to ensure that you are asking the right questions to help the contracting team assess the request, assign it to the right person and produce the first draft of the contract. Take time to think about what you need to know as part of this intake process, from the details of what is being procured, to the possible and material risks, any relevant correspondence that will help the contracting team understand prior discussions, and the required timelines.

This will avoid you having to go back and forth getting the required information before you can start.

Step 3: Triage your instructions.

Triage will allow instructions to be reviewed and then allocated appropriately. A good triage system can significantly save time and enables the contracting team to get going on the instruction quickly.

Here are some tips for creating a successful triage system:

1. allocate a ‘gatekeeper’– one or two people who receive, assess and allocate the instructions;

2. create triage rules, i.e. which contracts go where? Think practice area, contract value, risk, specialist expertise. Rules can also dictate allocating where there is capacity, preventing pockets of overburdened resources in your team; and

3.  only allocate instructions which are ready to be implemented. This is where the gatekeeper role can be very helpful as they can ask for more information or send instructions back to the business. The resources working on the contracts can then focus on complete and ready instructions.

Step 4: Create business rules for self-service.

Not all contracts need to be dealt with by the in-house legal, procurement or contracting team. There are some contracts which can be agreed by the business without any other input, as long as the rules, guidelines and templates are put in place to manage the risk. While these are obviously organisation specific, here are some examples of the rules we have seen:

No assistance required for:

1. certain simple contracts, like NDA’s, unless they are negotiated;

2. contracts on your template with no amendments;

3. contracts below a certain value on your templates, even where changes are agreed; and

4. contracts that are slightly higher in value on your templates, even where changes are agreed to, provided they fall within the acceptable fallbacks.

It goes without saying that training and communication to the business is key.

Step 5: Give stakeholders visibility of the contracting process.

There are multiple benefits to doing this. It reduces noise. If stakeholders are proactively notified of the status of their contract, this will cut down on the number of queries received for updates. It will give stakeholders comfort that their matters are being dealt with and are moving forward. It enables stakeholders to be more involved where they can most add value. For example, they can plan the next steps on their side, keep track of their timelines, or adjust and manage expectations of other parties.

Giving stakeholders visibility can be done by proactively sending an email or a message to the stakeholder at set events in the contracting process. It can also be done by giving stakeholders visibility of your contracting system if you are using one. Examples of visibility could range from setting out where the action lies on a certain matter (e.g., business or procurement), the relevant last action date, what stage the matter is in (e.g. signature) and the specific stakeholder responsible for the action.

If you found this useful, look out for part 2 of this series where we’ll be considering the factors to keep in mind when purchasing new legal tech solutions.