Digital White Papers

31 WWW.ILTANET.ORG | ILTA WHITE PAPER KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT and number of new clients or maers generated. Be sure to capture less quantifiable benefits like increased client satisfaction and recruitment and retention of talent. Depending on their nature, individual projects' metrics might be time or money saved, enhanced profitability per maer, increased work from one or more clients, decreased risk and beer outcomes. These metrics should be reported to the organization's leadership through periodic updates and formal reports to bolster support and grow the initiative. Share the individual projects' and overall initiative's success with everyone in the organization; this will encourage more people to share ideas and participate. Most importantly, promote the innovation initiative's success publicly, particularly with current and prospective clients. Get Going With ever-increasing pressure to deliver work more effectively and efficiently, starting an innovation initiative may well produce solutions that lead to a competitive breakthrough. And it never hurts to be known as an innovator. ILTA engagement, and the draing of project, communications and risk mitigation plans. Because innovation projects involve uncharted territory they tend to be riskier and need to move faster, so frequent informal meetings, such as weekly half-hour scrums or daily ten- minute stand-ups, may work best. Remember, learning to "fail fast" has become innovation's mantra. Building a proof-of-concept or prototype and soliciting stakeholder feedback early and continually are critical both to deciding whether to push forward and to geing the final output right. You also need to assess the project's viability continually and honestly. Know when to cut your losses; real failure is completing a project simply because you started it. As projects are completed, they should be closed and turned over to their ultimate owners for proper technical and process support. Clear handing-off and closing processes are as important as a disciplined intake process. Together these processes ensure a steady flow of projects, prevent the initiative from being bogged down and over-burdened and reduce the risk of underused and abandoned products. Measuring and Reporting Success The final component for a successful innovation initiative is a disciplined methodology for measuring and reporting outcomes. This too should be established before the initiative begins. Ideally, metrics will be developed for measuring success of the overall initiative as well as individual projects. Metrics for the broad initiative could include number of problems solved, number of projects successfully completed, amount of revenue generated, amount of cost savings A Practical Guide to Disciplined Innovation and Other Oxymorons GINEVRA SAYLOR Ginevra Saylor is a legal knowledge management, innovation, technology and practice management professional with 20 years' experience in building strategies for innovation, knowledge management, client solutions, technology adoption, and process improvement. She also has extensive experience as a litigator, legal writer, and educator in the US, Canada and Greece. A creative thinker, she is best known for quickly turning vision into practical results and bringing out the best and most in others. She is a frequent speaker and published author on the law, legal practice, innovation, legal technology, and related topics.

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