Let us begin with the “customer” contract. The process manager ought to sit down with the downstream or customer process or processes and negotiate contracts that specify what his or her process—which we will term process B—will provide to the customer. This contract, like any good contract, should specify what will be delivered, how it will be delivered, when it will be delivered, and where it will be delivered. It should specify the quality and the quantity of the items to be delivered. It should cover special contingencies, like a situation in which process C suddenly asks for twice the number of items originally scheduled for delivery during the upcoming week. The more specific the contract, the better. Once the contract is drafted, the process B manager needs to get the approval of both his or her functional manager and any higher-level process manager. Obviously, process B’s planning, scheduling, staffing, and budgeting will all be directly affected by the agreement. The manager of process B cannot honestly “sign” a contract to deliver 50 assembled widgets to process C if his or her functional manager will only approve a budget for the assembly of 30 widgets.