This book presents the latest findings relating to behavioral economics and digital tools applied to contract management. The past decade has seen a decisive change in the role of contracts, transforming them from purely legal necessities for protecting against worst-case outcomes, into tools for optimizing ongoing and mutually profitable business relationships with customers. There is an increasing emphasis on tight contracts, using prime contractorship to pass time-risk and additional costs on to the contractor with heavy penalties. Contracts shape the behavior of the parties involved and as such have a major impact on project success. The contract manager’s goals are to protect the interests of the company and its shareholders by minimizing the company’s financial and contractual liabilities and to maximize its profitability while ensuring end-user satisfaction.   The contract is usually written before the design has evolved, and there is often a mismatch between the requirements and what the customer really wants. Good contract management entails preserving the rights of the contractor by ensuring all parties respect their contractual obligations; providing advice to the project managers and engineering team; preparing profitable alterations to contracts or change requests; maintaining good record keeping in case of claims; filling notices when necessary; and guiding the project to a profitable contract termination. With strong similarities to the ancient Chinese game Go, moves made early in the game (notification of events) can shape the nature of a potential conflict a hundred moves later (arbitration threat) and smooth the relations with the partners if well-balanced “don’t-trade-a-dollar-with-a-penny” contracts have to be managed through an established process rather than as sporadic events (we cannot claim to be in control of our business if we are not in control of the contracts which it depends on). Managing a contract with a mix of incomplete manuals, fragmented information and poor planning can lead to “reinventing the wheel.” Contract management promotes a single 3-phase sequence to streamline the information flow across contract life cycles, from the bid phase to execution, project close down and final payments.   weiterlesen