Agile lawyering and Contract Design to the front
Verity White
Accredited Specialist - Commercial Law??Legal Director??Fellow with WorldCC??Speaker??Author
It is wonderful to be part of this innovative, collaborative cross-functional legal team to re-design contract documents and processes to support Telstra’s new B2B digital products.
With strong leadership from Karen Andersen, the B2B Digitisation legal team has navigated the agile product development process and adjusted our contract documents and processes to support the new product range on the digital technology stack.
Challenges for legal supporting Agile projects…
Agile can be tricky for lawyers….
?? Changing instructions
?? Multiple streams of work
?? Lots of cooks in the kitchen
?? Legal as project manager
?? Version control
Our legal design principles…
Some of the core design principles we worked to include:
?? Keep it simple… cover key legal risks
?? Limit repetition
?? Don’t bring complexity with you
?? Consistent experience across channels
What did we do?
?? New contract framework
?? Reduced duplication from product schedules
?? Used diagrams to break up text
?? Making things easier to navigate with ‘cookie crumbs’
?? New layout with visual icons
Progress not perfection
We know it’s not the prettiest or the simplest contract (yet).
We know our contracts aren’t perfect (and probably never will be!) however it is great to have the encouragement and support from executives to try new things. We were able to simplify the contractual documents and processes with the aim of a more streamlined experience for customers and team members.
What customers said about the new docs during testing…
?? It’s a lot simpler
?? It looks like a webpage
?? It’s quite clear… not just a block of text
?? I like the online contract with clear definitions of what I am paying for
?? This is the way going forward
We’ll keep working away to refine our contracts – both document and process – to support the ultimate business strategy.
?? Congrats to the Telstra B2B Digitisation Legal team for this wonderful recognition including…
Karen Andersen, Charlotte Hollindale, Jacob Grainer, Robert Sacco, Maggie Fung Lai, Lisa Goodman, Prathayini Chellappah, Matthew Garret, Henrietta Jones
?? And thanks to Erica Chan and Michael Caplan from Gilbert + Tobin for their support of this project and enthusiasm for innovation.
OVER TO YOU…
? What do you think, should ‘text only’ contracts be a thing of the past?
#digitisation #contractdesign #legaldesign #legalinnovation #b2bcontracts #inhouse #legalprojectmanagement #agileproject #agilelegal
Partner at Gilbert + Tobin
3 年Yes!!! Text only contracts are ancient history!! Thanks Verity White! Great post!!
Design, Digital, CX, Service Design, Marketing and Business Transformation
3 年Great post Verity, so good to see this out there showing how contracts should not be a wall of text. So many ways of getting great end results (the user reads through it faster, more comprehensive, understanding the text, less miscommunication... list goes on.) The impact is ten fold on ROI! BankWest is using visual Ts & Cs, great to see more and more visual communication enabling contract design.
Simplify, optimise, digitise your deals. Streamline for success. Speaker, consultant, trainer. Creator of the 500-word construction contract.
3 年If contracts regain their function as tools to help us do business, then there is no reason on earth for text to dominate their content. We can use colour, icons, diagrams, tables... we can add sensible structure, create contract sandwiches, use design pattern libraries and so on to make them easier to use and save business time and money without creating more risk for users. We just need business to see that it can be and is being done, and the massive ROI it creates.
Delivering brilliant experiences
3 年Jayaprakash Ramsaran this is right up your alley!
Socio/Partner en Lexia Abogados | Abogado especializado enFintech, Tecnología y Corporativo.
3 年Daniela Vélez Medina Laura Heshusius G.