Contract – must not have any ambiguity

It is vital that contracts for services are clear with no areas of ambiguity in them.

I have seen contracts that have many sections that are open to interpretation so neither the provider or client is sure what they are getting or is being provided.

Clients can view the ambiguity in their favour and providers can view the ambiguity as an opportunity for a chargeable change request. This does not benefit either party in the long term as the contract must objectively define the relationship between the client and provider.

If there is doubt or ambiguity in the contract, then it is hard for there to be trust between both parties. Either the client believes that whatever they can think of is included or the provider believes that only certain defined services are included, and the rest is out of scope.

Therefore, an organisation must invest a lot of time and effort into ensuring that their contracts are clear and have no ambiguity. So that there is no opportunity for confusion, annoyance or distrust on both sides.