Contract lifecycle and self-service intake
Standard agreements the business can start itself, without losing the record.
The problem
Sales wants a contract today. Legal wants the record intact. The current path involves an email, a template attached to it, and a version that nobody can find three months later.
How we would run it
STAGE 1
Evidence
A written picture of the current state, with its gaps named.
Map how agreements actually start, including the paths that bypass legal. Find where the record breaks.
STAGE 2
Baseline
A baseline measurement both sides agree on.
Measure cycle time from request to signature by agreement type, and how many go out on the current template version.
STAGE 3
Design
A design your architecture and risk leads have approved.
Decide which agreement types can self-serve, the questions that gate them, and the approvals that cannot be skipped. Design for the record as much as the speed.
STAGE 4
Ship
Working software or a live process, in production.
Release one agreement type end to end — intake, generation, approval, signature, storage — before adding a second.
STAGE 5
Prove
A result measured against the baseline, and an instrument you keep.
Report cycle time and template compliance against the baseline, and whether the bypass paths actually went quiet.
What you get
- Self-service intake for the agreed agreement types
- Question set and approval gates, with the thresholds written down
- Generated agreements on the current template, stored on execution
- Cycle-time reporting by agreement type
What it needs from you
- Current templates and their approval thresholds
- Access to the signature and storage systems in use
- A sample of recent agreements, including the awkward ones
Where the human stays
Self-service covers only pre-approved templates within agreed thresholds. Anything outside them — value, term, indemnity, non-standard clauses — routes to a lawyer before it goes anywhere.
How we would know it worked
- Cycle time from request to signature
- Share of agreements on the current template
- Agreements that skipped the record entirely
Where it starts
Starts as a sprint
AI Tooling Reality Check
What you own, what you use, and what the demo did not show.
Sprint details →Grows into
Platform Reckoning
Decide what to do about the platform you are about to renew.
Program details →Grows into
AI Build — pilot to production
One use case, built and put into production, with evidence it works.
Program details →Start with one sprint
Two to three weeks, one approver, a deliverable you keep. Tell us the problem and we'll come back within one business day with a scope, a date and a fee.
Scope a sprint →