Recently in Management Category

For the most part I believe that project management programs are overkill for a small law firm, but all the concepts are valid.  I tried to implement Microsoft Project at a law firm many years ago (you had to be there for that one - hey I was still new to law firms).  It took me weeks to program in all the variables  (cost, links, etc.) and within a few days of turning it on, my perfect plan and all the projects went "red".  By the end of a week or so they tossed it all out.  The people were not used to being tracked.  They did not consider all the potential impacts to projects and they rarely planned.  Trying to get a detailed strategic plan was very frustrating because they just did not seem to know what the potential impacts were.  I doubt that they really knew what they wanted or why they wanted it.

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My first solution was to decrease the level of detail as much as possible and only track the major milestones.  This is not that easy because you actually need to understand as many impacts as possible to have a valid project end date.  I have found that it is not unusual to have the end of a project look nothing like the original goal (go figure - it gives me the shivers).  For these folks it is kind of like a dynamic process.  So I had to compromise on that approach.  What I do now days is to attempt to document as much as possible the ideas as they are developed and link them as best I can.  OK, you said you wanted this but now you want this - why? Getting to the end of the project is not the primary focus for these folks (hard to believe). It turns out that thinking of all the potential impacts and planning for them is most important if you want to manage this fluid environment.  So I like to develop a system that allows for clear documentation (or communications) of ideas with a focus on discussing all potential impacts.  Of course I always like the idea of accountability - being an old ISO-9000 auditor.  Here is another shock, they not only do not like to be held accountable but they believe that this is counterproductive.

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There is no time for staff meetings to discuss issues, publish minutes, etc.  We need to find a way to quickly incorporate our best guess on all the variables (technology, cost, skills, etc.). I look around and consider all this.  I also look at what we already have installed.  OK, we have a case management system, like most law firms.  So why not use it to manage projects as well?  You can record notes, task, documents, and run reports.  You can track responsibilities, set up linkages between task, and quickly display status. Doesn't cost anything since you are already using the system for cases! So what is the problem?  People may be held accountable for task - so get over it.   By the way, I still have my old copy of Microsoft Project and it has only been used once for a few days.

For those of you following the latest in business philosophy a ROWE is a Results Oriented Work Environment. At a high level this is a work environment with lots of autonomy.  For example there is no time clock or set start time.  My question is, can you really have a ROWE and still maintain control over your business?  Let's take a real example - like a law firm.  Can you develop a work culture where the only performance factor is results?  Considering some of the hot buttons - no dress code, no start or stop time, no requirement to even be in the office.  

Have you ever been in a project management position when it comes time for the popular status report and you are 180 degrees apart from everyone else? As a project manager when this happens I am absolutely astounded that I am the only person in the group who sees the project in trouble. I got a clue when I tried to put a law firm under project management using Microsoft Project (don't try this at home unless you are a professional). Within the first month I had every schedule in the red. I was ready to deliver the doom and gloom speech. The lawyers, on the other hand, were smiling and ready to claim victory. Every schedule on the sheet was missed but in their mind they were still on track. I determined that the interim dates that they put in the plan were not really critical to them. They did not recognize the true impact on missed dates to the end date. I had no knowledge of the actual complexities of the project. All I had were a set of dates that represented the project. I also determined that they were not in any way focused on the internal dates, just the end date. I had developed this non-existent sense of importance when it came to these interim dates. The lawyers thought, even if the dates were missed, they could still meet the end date.

There are valuable lessons to be learned in this situation. First, don't assume that the first set of dates represents the full project or are representative of critical dates. Second, don't expect that everyone understands project management and the importance of meeting internal dates. If you are in charge of a project or just want to track one, make sure that the plan is complete, the relative importance of the task are understood and that the impact on the end date of each line item is real. More importantly make sure that the team or group understands what project management means and agree that the interim dates are a need that forces the group to meet the critical end date.

When we get together for mentoring sessions I have begun to notice a pattern. For a few weeks now I have tried to figure out just what is going on. The symptoms are; something comes up usually with IT or marketing and no one person is in charge. After some investigation I determine that the owner or senior partner has vendored out a piece of the puzzle and the Firm Administrator or Business Manager are focused on legal cases. So I ask who is in charge of this area and I get blank looks back. There seems to be a few things going on here;

1. I do not find an understanding that the business of law includes all the support elements. The most prevalent understanding I find is that the case is all important. This is great for a general focus but there are a lot of elements that go into handling or settling a "case".


2. I find a belief that marketing and IT support are necessary evils in this economy, but the business is settling client's cases.

I also discover that there is little understanding of what is involved to run this law business. Let's narrow it down a little so I can better convey my point. I was called into a law firm that is totally driven by their case management system. That, to me, would mean that their information technology was a key element to their business. On this day their server locked up and to get out of this problem the battery backup system had been powered down. They thought that this was the server. Anyway, when this happened all the servers powered down and they could not get the system back online. Not only did they not know which "box" was their server, they did not know what it controlled or who was responsible for the system. What I discovered was that they had signed contracts with several vendors to provide support on pieces of the IT system to save cost, but no one vendor or person had total control. The Firm Administrator had no idea what all that hardware did. So as long as everything worked (which was 90% of the time) all was well.
This is one of the elements that should have been addressed in strategic planning. Many law firms today have complex IT systems that support their business. These systems are a marvel of modern technology and include hardware, cables, software and many control tables. The systems are self checking and many times self repairing but if an element fails it is not always obvious to someone that has no idea what that system was designed to do. If this is the backbone of your business why would you have an administrator or a business manager that did not understand that system. That would imply to me that this person does not understand your business. If that were true how would you expect that person to administer or manage your business?
Having someone that understands your business and all the elements of your business is a key role. This is not the place to skimp. If you are going to give this responsibility to a vendor make sure that vendor is responsible and accountable for all the elements. I have had a firm administrator call me up to fix a printer that was unplugged and was holding up a client meeting. Take a good look at your "business" not just your deliverable and make sure that you know what drives your business and who is in control.

Many times I will look at a business that claims to have teams or even claims to be a high performance organization only to find employees that do not understand what they are expected to do.  You may wonder, what are they doing all day?   Well they are being reactive, These people are not working on or from a plan, they are completely reactive.  They do not know how they fit into the big picture and many do not even realize that they are part of a team. Nobody has communicated clear expectations related to any business goals or vision.  What they get are expectations related to technical skills. Kind of like do not make any mistakes writing this letter. That is OK, but they have no idea why they are writing the letter.  This sounds like a simple flaw to fix but it is not.  I find this in almsot every business I evaluate.   I suspect that the reason for this is that the leadership is really focused on the old management model and not really focused on teams or high performance.   They never see the full benefits of a well coordinated team.  They lack trust of the team concept. They are so focused on the day to day activities that that nice strategic plan they did or the nice speech they made about going to high performance teams have been forgotten. The end result is they claim that a team approach just will not work for them.  It is kind of a self fulfilling prophecy.