In a series of articles for journals and LinkedIn, I have outlined my view of contracting as a process, rather than treating contracts as stand-alone documents and their creation as drive-by events.
A contract process maturity model
This is a tool designed to refine this idea and future-proof your contracting [read more].
Disputes, lack of collaboration, failing to sign contracts combined with the large sums of money at stake have shown we definitely have room to improve [read more].
I believe we need to change the predominant risk-dumping and adversarial approach of the industry to one based on trust not terms. A contract process maturity model can improve trust as it focuses on improving co-operation, competence and character [read more]. The industry needs long-term collaborative relationships across the whole supply network.
The purpose of the model is not to make contracting more complex but to highlight best practice, decide how good your organisation is at contracting, and then suggest ways to improve your processes. Like most maturity models, there are a series of levels moving from reactive [read more] to developing [read more] to proactive (continuous process improvement).
At the moment, it is just an idea!
As an organisation moves up the pyramid it has more mature contracting, and its processes increasingly become:
- visible
- repeatable
- measurable.
This doesn’t necessarily mean more complexity – I am a advocate of simple processes as they work best in the real-world of time pressures, deadlines and client demands [read more].
