Digital White Papers

35 WWW.ILTANET.ORG | ILTA WHITE PAPER KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT Practical Tips on Staying Practical in an Innovation Culture » Deskside visits give you the chance to have what is essentially an intense, customized training opportunity with each end-user. » Deskside visit rollouts avoid the risks of practice group or large-group meetings where one person aer another will find problems. » You can work with the particular lawyer to describe his or her "what's in it for me." » You can take the opportunity to enable seings, save favorites, etc. » This approach ensures initial logons and training, customized Q&As and minimizes disruption to the practice group meetings. A Last Note The biggest and most expensive innovation projects (e.g.,hackathons, large-scale soware implementations and upgrades) will take the most time and money and cannot be over-managed. These initiatives touch multiple stakeholders and will have huge effects. But innovation also resides in small tweaks to processes, the addition of simple commercial cloud-based tools and outsourcing non-value- adding firm functions. These smaller projects should have equal billing as innovative and the same practical approach should be taken to them. ILTA » You will get criticism and unexpected questions coming your way, which can be hard to hear when you are so close to launch. But try to see this as actionable feedback you did not know before that can help you in the rollout period. For example, without a so launch on a recent project, I would never have known so many firm members are interested in how the tool would support innovative pricing! » It is free! It costs nothing to do a "drop by" with your laptop. There is nothing more practical! » There are side benefits to the so launch. You have the opportunity to strengthen relationships (everyone likes having their opinions solicited) and even get suggestions for future innovation projects. The Rollout – Adoption Tactics I have not found any adoption tactic as powerful as the simple, easy- breezy deskside visit. Deskside visits for every potential end user are time-consuming and resource-intensive. They may require KM team travel and can be expensive (at least in terms of time lost for other projects) compared to wrien communications and group training. But they are immeasurably practical: they get your new tool before each set of eyeballs you visit. We have all experienced the struggle just to get a lawyer to look at the new tool you are showing off. Deskside visits guarantee this. In turn, you are increasing the chance lawyers will continue to use the tool, moving closer to high return on investment. KATHLEEN HOGAN Kathleen Hogan is Director, Knowledge Integration at McCarthy Tétrault, based in the firm's Toronto office. She leads the firm's investments in and development of next-generation knowledge management systems and practices. Ms. Hogan began her legal career practising as a research lawyer at a national firm, developing a broad practice in legal problem-solving and strategy. She has acted as General Counsel at a private manufacturing firm, and later as Director of Knowledge Management at one of Canada's big five banks. With this background, Ms. Hogan brings a unique approach to practice resources, risk management, and client-facing solutions. In 2013, she was awarded the International Legal Technology Association's Peer Award for Most Innovative Law Department.

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