Standardising chaos

How do you standardise chaos?

A contract database needs to do exactly this.

Contracts are extraordinarily variable from one to the next. This is why they’re so tough to manage.

Standardisation lets you view an entire set of contracts through the same lens (e.g. comparing costs and commercial terms across a range of supplier contracts).

The problem is that the more you standardise, the more likely it is that your contracts don’t fit the prescriptive structure you created. Take it too far and the value of that structure = 0. You need to be more flexible.

There is no instruction manual for how to achieve this delicate balance.