Weagree

21/07/2022

For a successful change in your , start experimenting: discover what works and what does not. Establish a growth mindset and get motivated by taking small steps.

Read more to know how to approach change with a growth mindset (in small steps).


https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/weagree-newsletter-6944925950815952896/

20/06/2022

Do you fear that the implementation of will stall? and implementation not only require team members to change their way of working, but your selected technology may even imply hidden costs or an unsurmountable paradox.

Watch this video demonstrating how easy half of your admin contract-automation work is.

Create a Weagree template in minutes!The automated Word model contract import functionality will let you create a Wea...

07/06/2022

[VACANCY]
We are looking for a Sales talent who will be responsible for the global sales and adoption of Weagree’s contract automation and contract lifecycle management (CLM) software (our ‘Weagree Wizard’): generate leads, attract new customers and support existing customers in implementing Weagree successfully.

Are you interested? Then read on...
https://weagree.com/weagree-organisation/sales-and-customersucces/

If you know someone who might be interested in this role, please feel free to share this with them.

You will be responsible for the global sales and adoption of Weagree’s contract automation and contract lifecycle management (CLM) software (our ‘Weagree

16/05/2022

Some time ago, we were asked how many times we had rebuilt our “Weagree Wizard” application from scratch. First thought: we had never done something like that! Well, of course, over the past 16 years, we’ve rebuilt substantial code blocks and gradually the entire data model.

“Well, you’re doing very well! That’s precisely what I would want to see”, told the CTO of one of Germany’s larger companies to us. “Most startups and scaleups have never dared to do that, and sooner or later, their customers will bear the repercussions,” he added.

For Weagree, it ultimately signifies that over the years, our programmers have been taking the right decisions. It’s wonderful to hear that our meticulous testing work was the consequence of good decisions rather than poor programming.

"Creating contracts may be complicated for many reasons, and no doubt that lawyers require that oddities be solved?" he questioned. Yes, high quality does come at a cost. Large-transaction management is an example of how hard contract automation can be.

“Most programmers will sooner or later run into their own limitations” he explained. “That’s where the application’s roadmap stalls; as is typical of start-ups and, too often, even for large software houses”. Looking back, Weagree developed AI-based , as it was a must-go way to stay at an enterprise-grade level.

- 7 reasons you would not miss
This week, a legal newsletter wrote about seven document automation providers “not to be missed”. The listed ‘competitors’ of Weagree were a mix of younger and older players: the older players had either never been in the field of document creation or had stalled in the era of laptop-installed applications (not web-based).

The younger players promise to do a nice job in the field of workflows, visual reporting and tasks management. The field that Weagree has entered recently. Challenging programming is clearly not in Kanbans and graphical representations, but in document creation and , and in making it intuitive.

But of course, widgets and dashboards sound sexier than an editable ‘under-water-screen’ where contract-creators and guest-suppliers collaborate or negotiate their .

- User-friendliness is key
Last week, Weagree has started releasing another major rebuild of the Weagree Wizard. It is the result of 15 months of development and testing. We are closing the pre-existing gaps in our end-to-end solution.

This upgrade will be a large step forward, as each detail is designed to meet best-in-class standards.

Because we know what user-friendliness means:
· aligned with the user’s role and tasks
· ascertaining control over all contracts
· simple and attractive

And of course, super easy and flexible to implement: accelerating has been our sport for the past 16 years. This hidden aspect can hardly be matched (and not be missed)!

Learn more about our release on our roadmap (link in the comments)

05/05/2022

TALLEYRAND

It's fascinating how Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand, France’s leading diplomat in post-Napoleonic periods of war, achieved major change management milestones: shifting the world's perception of France as a defeated power towards being that of Europe's historic powers.

He made Europe’s kings, emperors, and leading diplomats believe that the past (that he had co-created himself) was to be deterred and left behind. Did he do something right?

Talleyrand knew exactly what was needed. Impressively, he depicted a into the future that convinced everybody to follow. For achieving successful milestones, you must know exactly what to do!

Read more about Talleyrand's successful efforts and how to project this on Legal Ops.
https://lnkd.in/eztf2Wir

It's impressive to revisit some change management milestones by Charles-Maurice de Tailleyrand, achieved during the Vienna Congress (1815)

12/04/2022

software of the first or second generation has had its best times. Managing contracts is not merely a matter of recording the end-date, anymore. Mere basic search capabilities are no longer enough.

Implementing a first or second generation CLM is extremely time-consuming and boring. Moreover, keeping such a CLM up-to-date requires discipline and does not inspire anyone. How many of your have automatically extended instead of being replaced, amended or terminated timely?

For the complications inherent to contracting processes and contract management, many companies have dressed down their contracts to reflect only the bare aspects, and nothing more.

- Nevi Contract Management Day 2022
This Thursday 14 April, Weagree’s partner NEVI will be organising the annual Contract Management Day. Weagree’s founder Willem Wiggers will chair a session on third-generation . Join us at the event for a look into the future of contract lifecycle management.

From contract-data extraction, via contract-files management, contract automation, automated risk management, easy-amendment to AI-driven contract lifecycle management. Contract management applications (like Weagree’s CLM) are becoming increasingly powerful, intuitive, and easy to implement.

NEVI’s annual Contract Management Day (in Dutch) is popular amongst and . This time, it is in a beautiful fortress just outside Utrecht. If you wish to join, register here https://bit.ly/3M0KYVY

- Third-generation CLM
Third-generation CLMs are accelerators of business, not the hoped-for insurance policy. It is where add value.

Many somewhat loosely committed obligations are becoming easier to monitor, in such a way that they do not fall off the radar. Not only do third-generation CLMs provide deeper insight into contractual obligations, but also into the effectiveness of processes.

- CLM and legal operations
A lot of CLM data seem rather nonsensical. But on closer inspection, they expose bottlenecks in internal processes. Visualisations of enable dry figures to support gamification and speed up business processes. The paradox is that the workload decreases and the volume of work increases.

Whereas contract management in older CLMs was often limited to basic data, such a limitation or rigidity is no longer necessary in third-generation CLMs. Where older CLMs involved time-consuming, complex implementations, with third-generation end-to-end contract applications that is history. The use of improves that, and at the same time, contract work becomes collaborative.

- The future of contracting
Using numerous practical examples, we are going to outline a vision for the future of contracting and contract management.

Hope to see you there!

Ga naar de webpagina voor de Nevi Contractmanagementdag 2022 en bekijk het programma, de keynotes en verdiepingssessies. 

07/04/2022

and increasingly build on . It is the inevitable that the future of contracting is automating each step:

1. Automated data extraction:
including retrieval of an amount, a currency, date, period, name and address and more. As long as contextual wording is not needed, such data are pulled out easily by any AI-engine.

2. Automated contract review:
transforming a laborious review process into a smart, quick and automated deal-closure that saves time and resources. This is where AI performs at its best and where Weagree is going to introduce a well-trained AI model capable of pin-pointing over 40 types of clauses that are commonly negotiated.

3. Automated risk assessment:
identifying the risks in the individual contract clauses and achieving a contract-level risk assessment, automatically. Qualifying the risks is no more than applying your risk ratings to the AI-generated findings. This may well include a contract portfolio analysis. This is what Weagree does anyway.

4. Automated contract mark-up:
replacing proposed contract wording by provisions from your own clause library. If is in your DNA, as with Weagree, then plugging in a clause library-clause is easy and creating a tracked-changes compare is something Weagree does already.

5. Automated contract registration in :
Logically, if the above steps have been automated, this most boring part of contracting work is automated almost out of the box.

The exciting news!
Weagree is building a fully-trained model that is able to identify, qualify, risk-assess commercial for various such as Document title, Parties, Effective date, Expiry date, Applicable law, Change of control clauses or non-assignment provisions, to name a few.

Weagree’s upgrade will be ready by the end of this month! Isn't this exciting? It is much more than an M&A-related or financing-related due diligence would seek for. It is much more than a basic would manage contracts for.

Interested to participate in our AI project and reap the great benefits of it, please get in touch with us. We have some unprecedented proposals for you.

04/04/2022

Your contracts may be . But are they also ?

Readability relates to whether your contracts are easy to comprehend. Legibility to using the right font (or typeface), font size, line spacing, margin width and paragraph alignment. There are hundreds of books written about it – very instructive when designing your .

A few parameters are key in designing your contract house style: those that define legibility. And legibility influences your contracts readability.

- Select your font
A decisive factor for selecting a font for your is its ‘legibility’. Many fonts are designed to convey a sense of novelty or fanciness, undesirable for contracts or advice. But there are a few excellent ones. For example, Helvetica (used by Weagree) marks the beginning of a completely new era; symbolises a revolutionary improvement.

When two fonts are printed in the same size, one often looks bigger than the other. Bigger x-heights make a typeface appear larger. Also differences in line weight and character-width affect the fonts’ perceived size. You may select the font for your contract house style by reference to the characteristics attributed to it. More about the characteristics of Times Roman, Garamond and Helvetica on our website (link in the comments).

A factor improving legibility is the serif, which harmoniously link letters to each other. (It’s the little capping at the stem of fonts like Times Roman or Garamond – a stem is the ascender or descender, as in l, p and d.) On computer screens, sans serifs are more legible.

- Legibility affecting readability
While ‘legibility’ largely refers to font properties, ‘readability’ relates to texts as a whole. But readability not only deals with semantics, grammatical structuring and drafting style, it also relates the combination of font size and page margin, as well as to line spacing and alignment.

While experts agree that a paragraph line reads best with between 13 to 16 words, lawyers tend to ignore this and overthrow it with between 15 and 21 words. The optimum is achieved by adjusting the font size and page margins. A larger number of words on the line can be slightly increasing line spacing: as a rule-of-thumb some 120% of the font size.

- Alignment: left or justified?
Alignment has a relatively large impact on the readability of a text. You would either choose justification or left alignment. Justification means that paragraphs are back-filled to the right margin resulting in a somewhat block of text. It radiates a sense of order, discipline and tradition.

Left-aligned (‘left-flushed’) texts are characterised by a ragged right paragraph structure. They are much more natural than justified texts.

Learn more about establishing a good contract house style here: https://bit.ly/3NCX6yk

Weagree’s supports all contracts house styles.

24/03/2022

Once upon a time, there was a sad elephant. The elephant had just discovered that it was not CLM-ready.

The main challenge for a who implements is to know how to start with Weagree in a way that *all* team members are going to use it? …and how to ultimately elevate the innovative way of for *each* contract?

- First-time right?
Everyone anticipates some resistance to . As head of legal or C-level officer, you want to avoid the pitfalls – because time is scarce. Taking the wrong steps would not only be a waste of effort, but it would also erode credibility for the next try.

Your team might maintain the status quo for too long, working the old way. You might have started with the wrong , or worse: you’re not CLM-ready.

- CLM readiness
The criterion for selecting the right technology should be whether its roadmap follows the right path and has a reliable vision. If that’s credible, focus on the nine parameters.

A sad elephant remains standing; a happy one moves mountains. Embracing legal tech is in the heads of those who use it. More important to your efforts is to be clm-ready yourself.

- Cool and joy
Wouldn’t it be cool if you could change the fundamentals of your team’s way of working and grasp the fruits of ?…have everyone enjoying legal tech and reach out to the next innovative steps?

How? Well, efforts fail because only a few of the nine parameters are addressed. Or even worse, when one or two dimensions are ignored altogether.

- CLM-ready your elephant
Effective change management requires that the three dimensions of your team are in order. To successfully implement Weagree’s contract lifecycle management, you need to:

1. Motivate the elephant. Intellectually, lawyers understand that old-school contracting is chock-full of inefficiencies. Yet, adopting contract automation and in their daily practice requires emotional engagement. Achieving this, asks yet another three emotion-aspects.

2. Be the rider. The rational side of implementing legal tech requires your leadership: vision and mindset. Introducing contract automation demands three rational parameters to be considered.

3. Shape the path. Be aware that what looks like a people-problem, is often a situation problem. Also, in this dimension-of-context, there are three parameters.

- Moving mountains
At Weagree, we have abundant experience in kicking off legal tech. We have seen sad elephants, and happy ones. We have a vision of sharing our best practices and we enjoy telling our customer’s success stories, the bold choices they made, and how their elephants move mountains.

We have embraced a framework with three dimensions (an elephant, its rider, and the path) and their nine parameters (link in the comments). And to illustrate this, we have plotted over 75 success stories.


Learn how to make an elephant happy https://bit.ly/3isEume

21/03/2022

The nominations for the annual Dutch Independent Legal Award 2022 have been announced!

14 independent from the top of the Dutch legal profession have been nominated by clients and peers as the best independent lawyer in the Netherlands. Mid-May, an independent jury of top-end legal leaders will select the winner.

View all the nominees here : https://www.dutchindependentlegalaward.nl/nieuws/14-onafhankelijke-juristen-en-advocaten-genomineerd-voor-de-dila-2022

Support your favourite candidate between 15 April and 6 May: vote on the DILA website. The public votes are a strong recommendation for the jury, along with their credentials and references.

The is the award for the best independent legal professional in the Netherlands. The award emphasizes that independent legal professionals play an increasingly important role at the top of the legal market. The DILA is organized this year for the 8th time by WeLegal Network and LawyerlinQ, and is supported by partners Mr., Lexxyn Groep, OSR Juridische Opleidingen & Weagree.



https://www.dutchindependentlegalaward.nl/

De DILA is de Award voor de beste zelfstandige juridisch professional van Nederland.

18/03/2022

With , it sometimes seems that nothing happens timely. That’s where intertwines multiple sub processes or involves multiple stakeholders. And that’s why legal counsel will never disappear. One can automate almost every step of the contract cycle but not replace the lawyer. They safeguard the process from stalling, spot loopholes in procedures, and justify transaction terms. Often involved ‘just-in-time’.

- JIT to flow
(JIT) delivery might seem ‘last-minute’, but it’s rather a characteristic of an optimised process. JIT reflects superior principles of procurement developed by Toyota (see link in the comments below), which were further developed as , and finally as development (with sprints). Reverse your perspective: just-in-time means perfectly planned.

Toyota’s focus on “just-in-time” prevents a lot of organisational waste: no excess raw materials, no overproduction, and no waiting. Toyota would classify excess inventory and a lack of quality inspection (defects that went unnoticed) as inefficiencies. According to an old Japanese proverb of 1954, focusing on removing inefficiencies brings flow.

- Flow requires a
Where service delivery is time-consuming or difficult to forecast, often the best one can do is to respond quickly to observed demand (JIT). This is exactly what a Kanban board accomplishes, it serves as a demand signal that travels immediately through the supply chain.

We are upgrading the Weagree Wizard, to include a tasks Kanban board and data visualisations. This also entails the user experience: how to make contracting easier, actionable, and yet all just-in-time.

As with , our forthcoming task workflow Kanban must be perfect, better than any other . And, we must learn how to manage tasks.

- Perfect tasks management
As we formalise Weagree’s IT-security policies for our certifications, we must schedule lots of security-monitoring tasks. To automate several hundreds of tasks (most of them recurring), it becomes clear what task management requires. Translating this to contracting practice, we need little imagination.

We turned to the inventors of the best tasks Kanban-board: Jira. Easy, flexible, automated task-creation and task-completion. With Weagree: tasks are aligned with the contracting practice of legal professionals.

- Inferior tasks tooling
We encountered an inferior tasks management tooling by one of our competitors, while migrating a third-party CLM and entity management into Weagree. They’re clearly unfamiliar with scrum, agile or the concept of creating flow. This competitor had stopped developing well before thinking what works. And what not.

Aiming for perfection results in better products. As Toyota proved, in optimising processes quality comes to light. We are passionate about you accelerating contract flow. With a Kanban and automated tasks management. And only the best. Just-in-time: perfectly planned.

10/03/2022

DRILL-DOWN, CLICK-THROUGH

The Weagree Wizard is soon upgrading visualisations. Such major upgrade entails reviewing the user experience (UX) and determining how to make and easier.

And worse, as with our , developing reporting widgets and data visualisations trigger our wish for creating the perfect product. Even more automated. Better than any other . But is perfection a good compass?

- The perfect reporting dashboard
To include a dashboard with countless reporting widgets and data visualisations. When we first started defining metrics for measuring the performance of legal, we thought that reporting widgets are funny but somewhat silly.

- Average contract value
- Upcoming deadlines (forthcoming period)
- Pending business transactions
- Average time-to-signing
- Average transaction cycle
- Average internal time for fact-finding
- Average time-to-approval
- Expired or terminated contracts
- Recently active users
- Number of abolished questionnaires

Funny but silly insights? Now we know better.

- Perfecting your
Take a closer look at the data that is required, and you will quickly realise that what appears to be silly data actually reveals a truth about your contracting processes: Who is the delaying factor? Which step of the contracting stage is actually slowing down the contract cycle? Where from procure-to-pay are your priorities?

When you dig into the data, it quickly becomes clear how ‘silly reporting visualisations’ cut the legal workflow into actionable pieces. An *Average time-to-approval* does not tell much, until you visualise who the slowest approver is. For example, combining the *Average contract value* with the *Average internal time for fact-finding* indicates if your colleagues set their priorities correctly.

- Perfect reports and visualisations
While insight in how many minutes take may seem silly, it reveals where processes stall – and what asks for your focus to accelerate business.

To get the best insights, you want to be able to drill-down to the essentials or lowest level of specificity, and then click-through to the underlying data. We are working hard on the perfection of contract-data visualisations. On personalising your reporting widgets easy.

Are you as perfectionist as we are?