Implementing IT Projects in Your Law Firm: Strategies for Success
In our discussions about the steps for successful IT project implementation, with both our IT consultant team at Zero Alpha, and the bilabl community, these are the themes that most regularly occur.
1. Appoint a Project Champion: In a tiny firm this may be only one key person, or it could be a cross-functional team that encompasses the critical departments or activities impacted by the proposed project. Establish the reporting line to the Managing Partner and give the Champion the authority to drive the changes that will be necessary to make the project a success.
2. Project Objectives: Begin by clearly defining the objectives, expected outcomes, and success criteria for the IT project. These objectives include budget, timeline and measurable outcomes from the project such as expected changes in performance metrics and estimated resource cost savings. These data points will be critical for the post-implementation review and a meaningful assessment of the value created for the firm by the investment.
3. Thoroughly Assess Requirements: First, identify the pain points. Second, conduct a comprehensive analysis of your firm's requirements. Lawyers do great legal work, but they typically don’t measure anything except billable time. Measure the time taken to conduct critical functions within the firm that are pain points. This could be the total hours of resources devoted to the monthly billing cycle, for example. A transparent analysis of these will create baseline data to compare to the post-implementation phase.
4. Embrace Change Management: Don’t skip this important point. The very human inclination to resist any change to the status quo is a fundamental cause for inefficiencies to prevail and law firm profits to be sub-optimal. Key decision-makers need to be fully engaged with lowering the resistance to changes that will ultimately benefit the entire team and clients.
Applying these principles will, ultimately, enable talented legal teams to thrive, compete and grow.
For more details and the full set of steps, read our newsletter: https://www.bilabl.io/newsletter/implementing-it-projects-your-law-firm-strategies-success