How to Adopt oneNDA Within Your Organisation: A Step-by-Step Guide

Adopting oneNDA within your organisation can streamline your legal processes, save time, and reduce costs associated with negotiating NDAs. Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you introduce oneNDA successfully within your company.

Step 1: Understand oneNDA and Its Benefits

Before you can advocate for the adoption of oneNDA, it's crucial to understand what it is and why it's beneficial. oneNDA is an open-source, standardised Non-Disclosure Agreement designed to simplify and streamline the NDA process. It reduces the need for lengthy negotiations by providing a balanced template that is fair to all parties involved.

Key benefits include:

• Reduced Legal Costs: Since the template is standardised, there is less need for extensive legal reviews and negotiations.
• Faster Deal Cycles: By eliminating the need to redline and negotiate NDAs, deals can be closed more quickly.
• Simplicity and Usability: The template is designed in plain English, making it accessible to non-legal professionals as well​​​​.

Step 2: Build a Coalition

Successful adoption of oneNDA requires buy-in from key stakeholders across your organisation. Start by identifying and engaging with departments that frequently use NDAs, such as Sales, Procurement, and Legal.

• Sales: Highlight the faster deal cycles and reduced dependency on Legal for review, which can lead to quicker closings and potentially higher sales commissions​​.
• Procurement: Emphasise the efficiency gains by reducing time spent on NDA negotiations, allowing them to focus on more strategic activities.
• Legal: Showcase how oneNDA reduces the legal workload by cutting down the time spent on reviewing and negotiating NDAs​​.

Step 3: Create a Vision for Change

Develop a clear and compelling vision for why your organisation should adopt oneNDA. This vision should address the specific pain points your organisation faces with the current NDA process, such as delays, high costs, and inconsistent practices.

For example, your vision might be: "NDAs today are mostly the same but expressed differently, causing unnecessary delays and costs. By adopting oneNDA, we can standardise our approach, save resources, and improve our business relationships."

Tailor this vision to different audiences within your organisation to ensure it resonates with their specific needs​​.

Step 4: Communicate the Vision

Effective communication is key to driving adoption. Use a variety of channels to spread the message across your organisation:

• Team Meetings: Present the benefits of oneNDA in regular team meetings, highlighting how it aligns with the organisation’s broader goals.
• All-Hands Meetings: Use larger company-wide meetings to discuss the adoption and gather feedback.
• Internal Newsletters: Include updates and success stories in your internal communications to keep everyone informed and engaged​​.

Step 5: Pilot and Gather Feedback

Before rolling out oneNDA across the entire organisation, consider running a pilot programme with a small team or department. This allows you to identify any issues and gather valuable feedback to refine the process.

• Select a Pilot Group: Choose a department that is open to change and frequently deals with NDAs.
• Collect Feedback: After a few weeks, gather feedback from the pilot group to understand what worked well and what could be improved.
• Adjust Accordingly: Use the feedback to make any necessary adjustments before a full-scale rollout​​.

Step 6: Roll Out Organisation-Wide

Once you’ve refined the process based on pilot feedback, it’s time to roll out oneNDA across the entire organisation. Ensure that all relevant departments are informed and trained on how to use oneNDA.

• Training Sessions: Conduct training sessions to familiarise employees with the new NDA process.
• Support Materials: Provide support materials, such as a quick-start guide or FAQs, to help users navigate the new template.
• Continuous Communication: Keep the lines of communication open to address any concerns and ensure smooth adoption​​.

Step 7: Monitor and Iterate

Adopting oneNDA isn’t a one-time event. It’s important to monitor its usage and effectiveness continually. Collect data on how oneNDA is being used and whether it’s achieving the desired outcomes.

• Gather Data: Track metrics such as time to contract closure, legal review times, and overall satisfaction.
• Solicit Feedback: Regularly ask for feedback from users to identify any areas for improvement.
• Iterate as Needed: Use the feedback and data to make iterative improvements to the process, ensuring that oneNDA remains a valuable tool for your organisation​​.

Conclusion

Adopting oneNDA within your organisation can bring significant benefits, but it requires careful planning and execution. By following these steps—understanding the tool, building a coalition, creating and communicating a vision, piloting, rolling out, and continuously iterating—you can successfully implement oneNDA and streamline your NDA processes for good.

‍