Key Takeaway: When you skip the minimum viable product (MVP), your contract lifecycle management (CLM) implementation risks stalling under its own weight. The surest path to value is by deliberately doing less. A focused, deliberate initial release builds adoption, secures value, and sets the foundation for enduring CLM success.

Failed contract lifecycle management (CLM) implementation often occurs for a predictable reason: teams try to do too much in the initial release, thereby stalling adoption, preventing transformation, and diminishing ROI. 

If you’ve been around CLM for any length of time, odds are you’ve seen this exact scenario unfold. Leadership gets excited about modern CLM platforms and AI. Someone sees a demo where contracts practically negotiate and manage themselves, and suddenly the expectation is that the first version will transform contracting across the entire organization in four months, even though that should not be the purpose of any initial release. 

The rest of the story is predictable: the inaugural release fails to meet unrealistic expectations for adoption, impact, and ROI. Although the causes are rarely singular, without a focused minimum viable product (MVP), organizations frequently attempt to solve too many problems at once, increasing complexity, and reducing the likelihood of early success.

What Is a Minimum Viable Product?

When people hear “minimum viable product,” they often think it means cutting corners and delivering something incomplete or insignificant. Not so. Rather, an MVP is a release of intentionally limited scope that still delivers meaningful business value. Its design and intent focus on solving a defined set of high-impact problems, not every problem users face.

By design, an MVP aims at proving value quickly, gathering real user feedback, and facilitating subsequent improvements. In CLM, that means tracking adoption, measuring cycle time improvements, and using those insights to shape future releases.

The unique value of MVPs has made them indispensable in software development as a way to direct ongoing product improvement, from features to usability, documentation, and other critical items. CLM implementations can, and should, employ the MVP approach as a way to gain those same benefits.

Remember: as the math makes clear, CLM ROI is driven by adoption, not a system’s feature set. The goal of the first release isn’t perfection. Rather, its purpose is to foster confidence in the platform and your implementation strategy and prompt low-friction user adoption. A system that is live, widely used, and solving real problems is far more valuable than a “perfect” solution that is still six months away.

When Release One Becomes a Wishlist

The problem starts with good intentions. Those intentions inevitably result in release one becoming a dumping ground for every stakeholder request. The pattern is highly predictable:

• Legal wants to finally standardize years of contracts language, templates, and clause variations. 
• Procurement wants every contract type included, so they don’t have to revisit implementation months later. 
• Business users want every manual step automated to justify investment in a new CLM platform.
• Compliance wants every approval path, pocy exception, and audit control built from day one. 
• IT wants every integration and downstream system connected before go-live.
• Executives want to maximize the investment by delivering maximum value as soon as possible.

Individually, these goals are reasonable. Collectively, they result in a release that’s trying to accomplish two years of work in 16 weeks. Instead of building momentum, the project becomes overloaded with competing expectations. Timelines slip, design decisions become rushed, testing gets compressed, and users become overwhelmed. The cumulative effect is erosion of confidence in the CLM initiative, sometimes to the point where frustration and disenchantment become difficult to overcome.

At that point, organizations question the platform when the real issue is trying to do too much too soon.

What a Minimum Viable Product Release Looks Like

A strong first release is deliberately focused. It may:

• Launch with a limited number of contracts types.
• Automate standard, manual approval workflows only.
• Focus on a single business unit.
• Include only essential integrations.

This is what defines an MVP in practice. It’s a control mechanism that limits initial scope so teams deliver value quickly, validate assumptions, and avoid the downstream cost of getting it wrong.

Your implementation roadmap should be driven by organizational readiness, not by everything the platform can do. Yes, modern CLM platforms support a wide range of capabilities, but that does not mean your organization is ready to adopt them all on day one. 

The best release one programs focus on what the business is ready to change now, while creating a foundation for everything that comes next. Organizations that do less in the first release often ultimately accomplish far more because each release builds on something users have come to trust.

One of the Biggest Benefits of a Minimal Viable Product Is What You Learn

With the MVP approach, an inaugural release teaches the organization something. The most important lessons reveal how your stakeholders make decisions, how much time the business can dedicate to design and testing, and where governance accelerates or slows progress. You also identify which users become champions, and which groups need more support.

Implementation teams will learn how to work together more effectively. By the time release two begins, the organization has a strong understanding of communication styles, decision-making, and the factors that drive successful outcomes.

Instead of trying to predict everything up front, teams use real-world experience to make each release faster, smoother, and more successful. 

AI Is a Great Example

AI for CLM has real and substantial value but, ironically, that makes it a major driver of unrealistic expectations. For example, everyone wants AI redlining. It is indeed a powerful capability, but that doesn’t mean every contract, clause, and negotiation should use AI on day one.

A stronger MVP approach starts with one contract type, a well-defined playbook, a limited set of clause categories, and a small group of engaged users. The team learns where users accept AI suggestions, where they override them, and where the playbook needs refinement. That feedback is something you cannot replicate in a workshop or design session.

AI is not something you simply turn on. AI for CLM is something you must prove, improve, and expand over time.

Sometimes You Don’t Have the Luxury of a Small Release

If you are replacing a legacy CLM on a fixed timeline, you may need to include more functionality in your first release. 

In this case, the focus shifts. You don’t have to deliver every enhancement right away. The goal is to preserve the capabilities users rely on today while creating a stable platform for future improvements. 

If the new system feels like a step backward, users will work around it. That makes adoption more difficult and slows long-term progress.

The Hardest Part Is Deciding What Not To Build

The most difficult part of an MVP approach is not building the system. It is deciding what to defer. Prioritization is about asking the right questions, starting with: What must be live for the organization to see adoption that delivers meaningful value in the first 16 weeks?

Answering that foundational question prompts other ones, such as:

• Which contracts (or contracts types, as a whole) drive the most risk, value, or volume?
• Where do delays have the greatest business impact?
• Which workflows are ready for change now?
• Which users are most likely to adopt early?
• What must work flawlessly at go-live?

Everything else can come later. That does not remove those items from the roadmap, rather, it allows each capability to be implemented with the focus it deserves, building on initial successes.

Build Confidence Before Expanding

An MVP aims at winning the trust of the people who ultimately determine whether a CLM program succeeds. Rather than trying to showcase every platform capability, its goal should be to build confidence in the solution, the implementation approach, and the organization’s ability to manage change.

A focused release one gives users an opportunity to realize tangible benefits early, demonstrates value, and creates momentum for broader adoption. With this foundation, the second release moves faster and delivers more value because it builds on experience rather than assumptions.

Success in release one is not measured by how much functionality is deployed, but by how much confidence is established. Technology alone doesn’t create ROI; people using it every day do. After all, ROI comes from the use of technology, not the technology itself, and therefore CLM success depends as much on people as it does on technology.

Learn more about Epiq CLM Implementation and Optimization.


 Devon (McGuire) Misterman, Sales Director, Contracts Solutions

Devon is a seasoned professional with over 10 years of experience in contracts analytics and contract lifecycle management (CLM). She specializes in CLM implementations, contracts migration, and AI contracts solutions. With a background spanning project delivery, solutions consulting, and sales, Devon has helped numerous organizations streamline their contracts management processes and maximize the value of their CLM investments.