Hi Tina,
Here are some of the findings from our processes I can offer you.
1) We use Contract Requests for anyone in our business to raise requests for new contracts and for requests for variations to existing contracts. Only our Contracts team have the roles required to create and own Contract Workspaces.
2) We ask for high level information at the Contract Request stage(anticipated dates & values, sole source Vs competitive event and some other key bits of information)
3) We don't have any SLA's as such as much of the timing is dependant on how ready the end user is with their scope and how urgent the requirement is. We also have approvals required by the wider business for all new requests that need to be contemplated.
4) The Contract Request is 'owned' by who ever created it. The Contracts Workspaces are only ever owned by the Contracts Team staff and we have a custom field called 'Contract Owner' for the business owner. This adds them to the teams tab as an active member too but never as owner.
5) Expiration notifications go to the Project Owner (contracts staff) and Contract Owner (business owner).
6) By having a custom field we can report on the 'Contract Owner' as I don't think it's possible to use the teams tab for reports. We do add them as an active member though so they can view and edit documents as required.
7) Centralisation will certainly help. Then lots of training and lots of reporting to make sure everyone's aware of the requirements and so that regular 'tidy-ups' can occur.
8) We used this method from day 1. We applied the same logic to the contracts we loaded via our legacy load.
9) As I say we also use the Contract Requests for variation requests from the wider business. Having Contract Requests as the only work spaces non-Contract Team staff members can create way we can be a bit less precious over the number of orphaned Contract Requests work spaces (and we encourage the business to put in requirements as a 'Planned' status to have potential future requirements entered and visible as early as possible. When a request is not going to progress we close it so that it falls of our reports.
Good luck with your implementation!
Ollie.