Formal Description:
Do traditional
“waterfall” (PMBOK) project management methods really work in legal, or are
they too rigid for most legal projects and processes? Learn how some legal
project management teams apply Agile/Scrum software development frameworks or
other modified traditional methods for a more iterative and incremental
approach to the management and delivery of litigation, AFAs or any other legal
projects that can be mapped into phases.
Speaker(s):
·
Kim
R. Craig - Seyfarth Shaw LLP
·
Andrew
Terrett - Borden Ladner Gervais
·
David
A Rueff - Baker Donelson Bearman Caldwell & Berkowitz
·
Suzanne
Wood - Norton Rose Fulbright
See tweets at #info8.
These are my
notes from an intriguing presentation about an area of effort that may
differentiate law firms. The conversation emphasized lessons from the trenches.
The panel included representatives from three of the most sophisticated LPM law
firms and it was good to hear about their challenges and victories in implementing
LPM. I wish that they had spent a little bit more time explaining concepts like
scrum and waterfall to project management newbies.
Kim Craig
[I've covered
the Seyfarth PM story elsewhere http://caselines.blogspot.com/2012/08/ilta-session-alternative-forum-track.html
]
Lean Six-Sigma
emphasizes the voice of the client.
Seyfarth started
PMO in 2004 outside of IT. They did do some IT projects.
Using too much
historical data to develop process maps can be problematic because the way
we'll be doing things going forward is going to change.
They use
"Task Map" which is a light overlay on Visio. They've mapped out the
process of mapping out a process. They pull out a page that they've used
before. They range from 8-60 pages. Attorneys get hung up on rolling over from
page to page. They blow up one task and show how it's organized. Attorneys like
educating them on what they do. She's learned a lot about law. Hearing
attorneys talk about how they make decisions is really important.
These
conversations are a major KM opportunity. KM needs to listen to, capture, and
reuse the process mapping discussions.
We're all new at
this. PM techniques that look nice and take a long time to develop may not work
in legal. The first time she showed an attorney a SharePoint project chart it
didn't work out well.
An email with
bullets was much more effective than a full status report.
They used many
types of applications and not any one coherent piece of technology to do PM.
Agile has
self-managing teams, lets teams manage work. Scrum defines roles.
LPM needs to
take core PM concepts and twist and turn them to apply to legal.
We don't know at
the start of the engagement all the factors that come into play. You don't know
in advance how aggressive opposing counsel might be or what you might discover
in the documents.
The agile
approach allows weekly planning meetings.
Agile is really
a manner of thinking. You can adjust and be flexible.
Kim's team
started out as a value add, but they are now billable (but without a billable
requirement). They measure ROI on retained or new clients. Clients very rarely
write off the LPM time. Clients usually have PM teams.
She's seen
increased sophistication in RFP information requests around LPM.
Andrew Terrett
BLG borrowed
from Seyfarth playbook, they have had an LPM office for two years. BLG has six
offices and a very diverse set of attorneys and practices.
A lot of
traditional PM makes a lot of sense in legal. It needs to be simpler. They are
not writing things down in project plans. Lawyers have a high sense of urgency
and want to "do, do, do" right away. You can turn a long project
statement into one page.
Attorneys don't
use Gantt charts. They do have deadlines and milestones.
Process maps
enable bottom-up estimating instead of analogous or top-down estimating.
Process maps
have been a great success, they elicit additional steps. Old habits die hard,
that process mapping work has been done for a particular piece of work does not
mean the matter team will actually leverage it in practice.
A process map is
like a GPS. It gives you direction but you're going to use common sense and
"keep driving when you cross the bridge" instead of turning into the
river like the GPS suggests.
What matters is
what works. Lawyers want the tools and approaches that will work for them. What
that is may vary from industry to industry and client to client.
The big LPM
challenge is change management. You're dealing with people who have been doing
things a particular way for a long time.
David Rueff
Traditional
project management workflow too cumbersome for attorneys to adopt. They spent
three months designing a specialized workflow "BakerManage" that
draws on waterfall project management, but is based on the way legal teams
actually work. Clients can see the same information attorneys are using to
manage the case.
They decided to
develop a team of 10 project managers (paralegals, attorneys with PM
certification, technologists). Process improvement and management is included.
Agile sets up
regular times to revisit project schedule and plan. Not every two months, more
like every two weeks.
The heart of the
work is the tasks and processes. They worked with a health care litigator to
develop a detailed process map. When the AFA request came in, they had already
developed the ability to provide a detailed estimate within 48 hours.
BakerManage has
a budgeting tool that reconciles with time with the budgeting system to show
lawyers where they are against budget, and also provides email alerts. The system
requires daily time entry. Checking the system every 30 days is not often
enough.
Using a
consistent set of codes allows cross-office matter comparison.
Lawyers need to
have initial meetings where whole matter / case team is educated about budget
and limits. Then they can operate as a self-managed team. It can't be business
as usual. LPM type systems are a way of communicating with the team about what
the client requirements are.
They use LPM on
matters on fixed fee matters. The consistent communications with the client
develops its own momentum. The LPM team doesn't bill to clients.
They have had
client employees seconded to the law firm team to learn LPM.
Resource
Availability
An audience
member suggested that associate / resource availability is a real challenge for
LPM.
Don't assume an
associate only has an 8 hour day. Engineers have used critical path technique.
That may be the next phase, but right now we're just trying to get lawyers to
develop the plans at the time of budget development.
Identifying
resource availability is a next step [my firm has developed "iStaff"
software that could help with this, as associates identify their prospective
level of availability.]
Clients are
forcing kickoff meetings where they want whole team is identified up front.
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