Contract Lifecycle Management involves not only the proactive management of compliance to the negotiated terms and conditions of your agreements, it is highly dependent on how the specification and contract is constructed.

Rudyard Kipling wrote, I keep six honest serving men,(they taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When, And How and Where and Who

Near the beginning of last century Rudyard Kipling penned the above verse. In doing so he identified one of the most valuable aspects of the management of the contract lifecycle. Whatever horizontal or vertical in which you work as commercial manager contracts it is true that managing a contract successfully is highly dependent on getting the specification right before you let the contract.

Producing a good specification is worth the effort to make your life easier when managing delivery of the contract.

Dont base your relationship on general conditions, draft your legal document using the specification as a guide, and make it outcomes based. This will give you a far more usable document with clear guides and control mechanisms that can be utilised to proactively manage the contract.

Contract lifecycle management software will help to streamline your contract management. But remember to get the specification right.