Key Takeaway: The success of your contract lifecycle management (CLM) implementation is determined before requirements or configuration work starts. The Readiness Phase aligns stakeholders, prepares critical information, and surfaces risks early. This preparation prevents rework, delays, and scope surprises. Investing in Readiness brings clarity, time efficiency, and momentum through the entire implementation.

When organizations consider implementing a new contract lifecycle management (CLM) solution, most of the attention naturally goes to the “build” stage. They jump to defining requirements, configuring the tool, coordinating training, and delivering outcomes. What often receives far less appreciation is the phase that comes before all of that: the Readiness Phase.

Readiness is not an administrative hurdle to skip past before you get to the real value. An intentional foundation for implementation determines whether you start smoothly or stumble from day one. This preparation ensures your team is prepared, aligned, and informed before the project kicks off. When done well, it saves time, reduces frustration, and dramatically improves the odds of a successful implementation.

Readiness Is About Starting Smart, Not Starting Fast

A common misconception is that jumping straight into requirements gathering saves time. On the surface, it feels efficient; why not move immediately into workshops and discussions to quickly progress the project? The reality, however, is that skipping or rushing Readiness almost always leads to confusion later.

The Readiness Phase ensures the right people are involved at the right time, with the right information in hand. It allows teams to confirm who needs to participate, what materials are needed, and how those materials will be used. Without this preparation, requirement sessions are often bogged down by basic questions, missing information, decision-making, and side conversations that should have happened earlier.

Readiness reduces downstream rework by addressing issues early, so they do not disrupt more expensive and time-sensitive phases later.

Alignment Before Action

One of the most important goals of Readiness is alignment. CLM implementations bring together many stakeholders, including business leaders, subject matter experts, project managers, and technical implementation teams. Each group may enter the project with different expectations, assumptions, or interpretations of scope.

The Readiness Phase provides structured time to review goals, confirm expectations, and ensure everyone shares a common understanding of what the project is meant to achieve. This includes aligning objectives, boundaries, priorities, and responsibilities.

Without this alignment, teams may move forward believing they are in agreement (or have a shared understanding) of the process, only to later discover fundamental differences in the path forward. Readiness surfaces and resolves these issues early, when adjustments are easier and far less disruptive.

Preparing the Right Information at the Right Time

Another central purpose of Readiness is preparing key project materials in advance. These materials (often called “artifacts”) represent how the contracting organization works today. They might include examples of contracts documents, process outlines, approval rules, or summaries of existing workloads.

During Readiness, teams identify which materials are needed, who is responsible for them, and how they will be organized. Advisory support from partners that specialize in Readiness procedures for implementing CLM helps to guide this process so that teams are not guessing or duplicating effort. This preparation ensures that when deeper project discussions begin, participants spend their time on decision-making rather than information gathering or tracking down key artifacts.

This results in far more productive use of time, especially during later workshops that require broad participation.

Turning Guesswork Into Clarity

Readiness also plays a critical role in the advisory and educational component of CLM implementation. Rather than simply requesting information for later use, the Readiness Phase involves teaching about the nature of the deliverables, providing guidance on how to prepare them, and discussing why they matter. This reduces uncertainty, builds confidence, and teaches participants how their contributions support later phases of the project.

By creating opportunities for open-ended discussions, Readiness allows teams to ask questions, raise concerns, and gain clarity without the pressure of formal required sessions. This not only improves preparation but also equips participants to become more engaged and invested in the project.

Readiness replaces guesswork with clarity and sets the tone for a more collaborative and informed implementation.

Protecting the Project From Scope Surprises

Projects often encounter challenges not because the work is complex, but because expectations around scope were misaligned from the start. The Readiness Phase acts as an early checkpoint to compare assumptions against reality.

As the review and preparation of materials proceed, gaps and overages naturally come to light. There may be more complexity than originally expected (overage) or a smaller need than was originally scoped (gap). Often, what was decided as the original scope of the implementation may no longer be a priority or may not be ready to implement as a part of a CLM system (another gap). Readiness provides an opportunity to address these findings in a controlled way, adjusting plans and timelines before downstream work begins.

This proactive alignment protects both the project team and stakeholders from unpleasant surprises later, when changes are more costly and emotionally charged.

Respecting People’s Time and Availability

Another often-overlooked benefit of Readiness is that it respects the realities of people’s schedules. CLM implementations are rarely the focus of participants’ day jobs, and these resources may not have the availability to jump right into hours upon hours of intensive required workshops. Readiness adds breathing room to the overall timeline and ensures thoughtful scheduling. This allows all necessary contributors to attend and be prepared, while still using this period to efficiently complete pre-requirements.

By identifying availability early, the project avoids false starts, such as workshops that must be postponed, repeated, or reconstructed due to missing participants or materials. This respect for time builds trust and reinforces the professionalism of the implementation approach.

Reducing Risk Before It Becomes a Problem

Every project carries risk, but many risks are predictable. Missing information, unclear ownership, misaligned expectations, and unrealistic timelines are among the most common causes of delay and frustration.

The Readiness Phase is explicitly designed to reduce these risks. By tracking progress, reviewing preparedness, and conducting a formal summary at the end of the phase, teams can make an informed “go or no-go” decision before moving forward. This checkpoint ensures the project is truly ready to advance into requirements without assuming significant risk in doing so.

Set the Tone for the Entire CLM Implementation

Perhaps most importantly, Readiness sets the tone for the rest of the project. It demonstrates that the implementation will be thoughtful, organized, and collaborative. It establishes clear communication patterns, shared responsibility, and a sense of momentum built on preparation rather than haste. 

When teams feel prepared and aligned at the outset, they enter subsequent phases with confidence. This positive start often carries forward, shaping perceptions and behaviors throughout the project lifecycle.

Readiness Is an Investment, Not a Delay

Although the Readiness Phase may add time at the front of a project, it saves much more time later. It prevents rework, reduces friction, and improves the quality of outcomes. In the context of your CLM implementation, Readiness is not optional groundwork. It is the work that determines whether everything that follows holds together. Teams that invest in Readiness move forward with shared expectations, informed participants, and fewer unknowns.
The result is both a smooth start and a resilient implementation. This foundation will absorb complexity without losing momentum, delivering outcomes that exceed your expectations.

Learn more about Epiq Contracts Solutions.


Spencer Ellsworth, Director, Contracts Solutions
Spencer has spent over 18 years in the technology industry, holding positions in IT support, computer maintenance, technical writing, training, software development, hardware and software implementation, and integration. As a Director in the Contracts Solutions practice at Epiq, Spencer supports selections and implementations of CLM tools.