C05 · PRACTICE GUIDE
Lifecycle Management
Manage progress through readiness and value gates, with room for loops, recovery and exit.
A customer relationship contains multiple use cases, contracts and initiatives. Each can be at a different stage. Use lifecycle states to clarify the next decision and required evidence. Renewal, expansion and advocacy are events or branches; they are not inevitable final steps.
Put it into practice
Define the engagement or use case being managed and place it in one of the five core lifecycle states.
Set an exit criterion, accountable owner and evidence record for each state. Allow a return to an earlier state when assumptions fail.
Overlay contract dates, health monitoring, governance and improvement. Track recovery, pause and exit explicitly.
What good evidence looks like
A lifecycle record with current state, next gate, owner, evidence and upcoming contract events.
WATCH FOR
A common failure mode
Assigning one rigid stage to the entire customer or starting renewal work only after value realization.
What to measure
Time to first verified value and time blocked at each gate, segmented by engagement type.
Practice guidance · Framework v1.0 · Published September 2026. Adapt the method to your business model, customer segment and decision authority.