The problem

Lots of contracts, not enough clarity

One Hevi customer summed up their situation in a single sentence.

“I will be completely honest and open and there is a level of immaturity in the business in terms of the understanding of the contractual requirements from a life cycle point of view.”

They had a large portfolio of long term contracts.

Major life cycle events were coming up.

The team was busy.

And only a handful of people really understood what the contracts actually required over the life of each project.

Management did not want another dense legal memo sitting in a shared drive.

They wanted something that project managers, commercial leads and site teams could actually use.

They called it a life cycle ready reckoner.

A short document that would explain in clear language:

• What really matters in this contract over the next few years
• Which milestones and events cannot be missed
• How to deal with variations, delays and disputes in practice

The challenge was not writing one good document.

The challenge was doing it again and again for every contract without burning out the experts.

The real question

How do we replicate this conversation

By the time they spoke with the Hevi team, this customer had already used Hevi chat and Agent Mode on a few contracts.

They had seen how powerful it was to sit with one agreement, ask focused questions and get back structured answers.

Underneath all of this was a simple need.

They wanted a way to take one really good expert conversation about a contract and turn it into a reusable playbook for every other contract they had.

The Hevi approach

Turn one expert review into a question set and template

Together with the Hevi team, the customer built a workflow that started with one contract and ended with a system that could scale.

Step one

Perfect the first ready reckoner

They started by choosing one important contract.

Using Hevi chat and Agent Mode, they asked detailed questions about life cycle obligations, key dates, risk points and workflows.

They went back and forth until the first life cycle ready reckoner felt right.

Not just correct from a legal perspective, but usable for the teams who actually deliver the work.

This document became the reference point.

It was more than an output.

It was a map of how the experts thought about the contract.

Step two

Pull the best questions into a reusable question set

The next move was to capture the thinking behind that first document.

They listed out the questions that had produced the strongest answers and arranged them into a simple spreadsheet.

Each section of the ready reckoner had a small cluster of questions attached to it.

Some were broad.

Others dug into details that this organisation cared about every time.

Once they were happy with the structure, they loaded that spreadsheet into Hevi as a contract review template.

In the words of the user:

“I just make my own Excel file that has got the questions that we want to cover off, add it in and then everybody else will be able to access that if I load it up as a built in template.”

That one step turned a private expert conversation into a shared question set that any team member could use.

Step three

Respect the idiosyncrasies of each contract

The goal was not a single generic checklist that ignored the differences between contracts.

As one of the team said:

“Each contract has its idiosyncrasies. I just want to make sure that it captures those idiosyncrasies.”

So the question set in Hevi was designed as a base.

Teams would run the standard questions first.

Hevi would generate a structured summary and highlight any unusual clauses or special conditions.

From there, the experts could add a few contract specific prompts and fold those answers into the ready reckoner.

This gave them consistency where it helped and flexibility where it mattered.

Step four

Control context with clean workspaces

To fix the confusion between different projects, the customer restructured how they stored documents inside Hevi.

Each contract had its own workspace.

Chats, uploads and question sets were run at that level instead of across the entire portfolio.

That way, when they asked about a contract, Hevi only looked at the documents that belonged there plus any shared guidance they had chosen to include.

No more leaking answers from contract Y into a conversation about contract X.

Step five

Use Hevi for the heavy lifting and Word for the polish

For final edits, the team stopped trying to prompt their way through every word.

They used Hevi to generate the sections, the life cycle narrative and the flow of the document.

Once the content was in a strong place, they exported to Word and made small stylistic changes there.

Hevi handled the deep reading and structuring of the contract.

The team handled the last five percent of language and layout.

What changed for this customer

Across their portfolio, several shifts became obvious.

First, the organisation lifted its practical understanding of contracts.

Life cycle ready reckoners made it clear what mattered and when.

Project teams no longer had to hunt through hundreds of pages to find the one clause that would save a claim.

Second, experts stopped repeating themselves.

Instead of explaining the same ideas over and over, they invested time once in a question set and template that everyone could use.

Third, the AI became more reliable as a daily tool.

Better context control meant fewer confusing answers.

Smarter use of templates meant more consistent outputs.

Perhaps the most telling feedback came toward the end of the setup.

“Love it. That is exactly what I am going to do. That is exactly what I am doing.”

And later:

“Appreciate it. Nerding out with you guys has been great.”

The technology solved real problems.

The process around it made those solutions stick.

Lessons for other owners and contractors

If you see your own organisation in this story, you are not alone.

Many teams are sitting on complex contracts, busy portfolios and delivery teams that do not have time to study every clause.

The lesson from this customer is simple.

Do not aim for a perfect summary for every contract straight away.

Start with one important agreement.

Use Hevi to have the best possible conversation about it.

Capture the questions that matter.

Turn those questions into a reusable template.

Then roll that pattern out, one contract at a time.

The result is more than faster contract reviews.

It is a repeatable playbook that helps every project team understand what their contracts expect of them and act on that knowledge every day.

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