Your January Assignment: Re-evaluate your work flow processes!

I can not stress enough how important it is to take time out every year to review your individual and team work flow processes.  As each week, month and year passes it becomes very easy to place ourselves on auto-pilot, put our head down and crank out the work like we always do, day in and day out.  What we don't often look to understand is that our work is not always the same work and we unsuccessfully try to apply our current methodologies to new work or miss the opportunity to use new tools to improve our efficiencies.  We could all benefit by evaluating our work processes, work tools and organizational methods on at least an annual basis.   Even if you change nothing it will be a useful exercise to take a 5000 foot view of your day to day responsibilities and how you meet those responsibilities.   Here are some suggestions that may help you find ways to improve your efficiency and work flow.

• Once a year (it doesn't have to be in January!) sit down with your team and ask questions.  What works for you and the team? What is not working?  Be specific with these questions and provide examples! It may be helpful to go through in detail how you manage the tasks you and your team are often completing and then ask if anyone has suggestions to improve these tasks.  Make sure your team is comfortable speaking up by encouraging different thoughts and opinions.  
• Consider going through, as a group, a typical file/case/assignment from start to finish and and seek out suggestions and comments that might help promote a more efficient way of completing the tasks that are associated with said file/case/assignment.  
• Take action immediately and implement any ideas that came from and were agreed upon at your team meeting!  Set a 90 day "check-in" to see if it's going the way it was intended and don't be afraid to tweak it, change it or dump it and start over.   
• Speak to others outside of your practice area.  How are they handling the challenges they face in their daily workload and what tools are they using to improve their efficiency or to market themselves better?
• Do you have the right people on your team?  Is everyone invested in the success of the team and/or practice group?  If not, make changes.  A team member who isn't with you is against you and can spread negative energy like a cancer.  Fix it fast and if it can't be fixed, remove it.  
• Are you organized?  Your methods of organization are not my methods of organization but make sure you have a method and that others who work closely with you can abide by this method.
• Use the technology that is available to you.  It is no longer acceptable to "fear"  or to be lazy about technology.  Your IT Department has provided you a plethora of tools meant to help you be more organized, productive and efficient.  Use it and if you don't know how best to use it, get someone in IT to help you develop your use of a specific tool. If you can figure out your iPhone and  iPad or an expensive home media system you most certainly can and should figure out how to use your company's DMS.  
• Challenge your team members.  What task takes too long  or is generally something no one likes to do because it's so cumbersome?  Identify it and challenge your team to come up with a way to make it easier or more efficient to complete. Offer a reward for the best idea and then implement it!
• Have lunch with peers who work in other Firms and ask how they manage various tasks and functions.  Why recreate the wheel when someone is already driving on it? 

The above bullet points are just the beginning and I hope they help you to be thoughtful about what you do and how well you do it.  Just because it's "always worked in the past" doesn't mean you shouldn't take a hard look at it and make sure it's still working like you intended it so long ago.  People find change intimidating, and for good reason, it IS intimidating but you'll never grow personally or professionally without some challenges and with challenge inevitably comes some kind of change.  If it weren't a change, it wouldn't be challenging.  Embrace it, commit to it and see how it helps you and your practice.  Please comment on this post if you have other ideas and suggestions that have worked for you and have created better organization and efficiencies.

May 2011 be your best year yet!

Help me help you

I have been in IT for a small/mid-sized law firm in Chicago for over ten years and there are few lessons I've learned about those working/sweating/toiling in the legal industry.  One of those is that the technology I provide my attorneys and other legal professionals is very often under-utilized. I'd like bridge the gap between what your given, what you want and what you'll actually use because they are all very different things. 

The simple fact is that most attorneys and billable staff are working hard to beat the clock with every moment of billable time possible, especially in this economy.  Clients are demanding better, faster and cheaper services and today's attorney's must consider what technology is available to them to assist in meeting those demands.  Don't overlook the tools you already have but aren't using. Make an appointment with one of your IT  staff members and ask them to give you 15-20 minutes of a tutorial on a system you aren't using or that is underutilitized by you and/or your team.  Commit to trying it for 3 business days.  Don't expect to master the system, just learn a piece of it that might be useful to you and your practice.  Ask your IT Management to partner with you to better serve your clients and commit to increasing your technical knowledge.  Do this once a month and I guarantee that you and your technology staff will begin find several ways to improve  workflow and work product for you and your team!

A take-away:  Naming conventions are a very useful tool for keeping your documents and files organized and easy to locate.  Many law firms use a document management system where documents are profiled using a variety of parameters such as client and matter numbers and will always have a place to "name" the document.  Put some thought into this so you have an organized view of your work product and you and your team can quickly and easily locate important documents.  Example:  LTR Mr. Smith re: Motion to Dismiss - 9-1-10.  Such a naming convention will allow you to easily search using paraments such as client/matter numbers and then find what your looking for by quickly scanning the description/document name.  Remember, this will only be beneficial to you if your entire team is using the same naming convention.

Happy Friday!