Legal Ops Essentials: Commit to Constant Contracting Improvement

Constant Improvement

Pareto’s Principle of 80:20 applies to contracting as it does too just about everything else. When your in-house team supports contract negotiations:

◼️ the issues that come up most frequently are the same;

◼️ the “pushbacks” you receive often relate to the same issues; and

◼️ where you land on 80% of those issues tends to be the same. 

In short, much of the contracting experience is generally predictable - and this means that if you are prepared in advance, you will thrive. 

It also means that if you spot a new and improved approach to the 80% - it can massively improve your overall contracting outcomes.

As such, high-performance in-house teams actively look for ways to constantly improve their approach to the “80% of contracting scenarios.” This is a significant performance hack. 
 

10 Things Your Team Can Do To Turbo-Charge Your Contracting Function's Rate Of Improvement

When you encounter a new or better way to handle an issue, you need to intentionally consider how your team:

1. Spots the issue again: update / upgrade your checklists;

2. Resolves the issue: update your Group Legal Policy;

3. Documents the issue: update and improve your Templates, update your Clause Banks;

4. Negotiates the issue: update and improve your Playbook; 

5. Escalates the issue: does it need escalation and to whom, make it clear;

6. Communicates the issue: who inside your business needs to know about the issue;

7. Trains on the issue: train your team in respect of your new/upgraded approach to the issue;

8. Performance manages the issue: determine what your implementation teams can do to performance manage the issue;

9. “Process-ifies” the issue: you may need an improved workflow process to deal with the issue; and

10. Tracks the issue: consider whether the issue warrants tracking through some kind of data metric.
 

Conclusion

It is simply not acceptable for a lawyer in your team to come across something new, or an improved way of doing something– and then sit on it!

High-performance in-house teams ensure that “new” and “improved” are effectively incorporated into and available to all contracting function people, platforms and processes.

If you find these “short’n’sweet” in-house legal team performance insights helpful – please do join the GLS Legal Operations Community
 

Ready To Transform Your Legal Team?

Please check out the GLS solutions and know-how resources listed on the right side of this page – they might assist your legal team with the issues explored in this Blog. 

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