I’ve referenced this story in passing a few times already, so I figured I should tell the whole thing. It’s the story of how I went from “where are the contracts?” to “I can find anything in 90 seconds” in a single workday. It’s not a heroic tale. It’s more of a cautionary one that…

I’ve spent the last fifteen years managing contracts. Not “overseeing the end-to-end optimization of contractual instruments across the enterprise.” Managing contracts. Finding them, reading them, tracking the dates, making sure nobody gets surprised by an auto-renewal or a missed obligation. And yet, if I go to a conference or read a vendor blog or sit…

Contract Lifecycle Management: What It Actually Means (Without the Sales Pitch) I have a confession: I find the term “contract lifecycle management” genuinely annoying. I’ll explain why in a separate post, because I’ve got a lot to say about it. But for now, let me do the useful thing and explain what it actually means,…

If you Google “what is contract management,” you’ll get about fifty results that say essentially the same thing. Something like: “Contract management is the process of managing legal agreements from start to finish, ensuring they are created, executed, and reviewed effectively.” That’s from Icertis, but it could be from any of them. Swap the company…

I want to tell you about the worst filing system I’ve ever inherited. It was my second week at a mid-size company. About 350 employees, maybe $60 million in revenue. Not huge, but big enough that you’d expect someone to be keeping track of the agreements that made the money come in and go out.…