Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/18157
Can you describe the unified messaging project in general terms — what technologies were involved, what was the timing, and what were the results? That project started around May 2009. It developed as a result of our being accepted for a pilot project offered by Microsoft — an implementation of Office Communication Server (OCS) 2007-R2 within our environment. The timing was a little quick for us, but we fell in love with the concept of unified messaging — having voicemail and notification of missed calls, etc. delivered to your inbox — and we could clearly see these features having the potential to provide increased productivity and improved client service. It has always been firm policy to strictly align all projects with the firm’s business goals. We follow a service profit chain model, which essentially is: happy lawyers, happy staff, better client service — and better client service equates to more income for the firm. So as we looked at the client communication project, it was quite easy to match areas of the product with our firm’s business goals and our strategy. Once we sat down and mapped out the project to the business goals, it was really a no-brainer. This was about a yearlong project. It involved removing all our existing telecom systems. We were running four different ones, so there was no real consistency throughout the firm — that was another driver for the project. We wanted a consistent telephony infrastructure as well as desktop infrastructure. You see, we have a lot of lawyers who travel around Atlantic Canada with different matters, so we wanted to have an environment in which any of them could sit down in a guest office at any of our locations, log on, and work as if he were in his own office. It didn’t take us long to see this product was ideal for our needs. This was a highly technical project involving complex technologies, substantial capital and human investments, mission-critical systems and so on. How did your team define the initiative in terms of your firm’s strategic business goals without getting lost in the technical weeds, and how did that connection impact your approach? With respect to the service profit chain, we approached the project looking for how it could make lawyers, staff and clients happier. There were some features of the product that really jumped out at us. We didn’t then have the infrastructure that allowed our attorneys to work from home so that it was transparent to clients, but with the implementation of the project, our lawyers can now take their laptops offsite, work from home for the day, make and receive calls as if they were in the office, and meet their billable hours. And clients are oblivious to the fact the lawyer is sitting at home in his personal office. We even have lawyers talking to their clients and IT from 30,000 feet in the air. Our lawyers are generally quite happy with the outcome. One of the key success factors you mentioned in your award application — and one that really stood out to me — was the communication strategy before, during and after the implementation. Tell us a little about how you approached that critical piece of the project and how it impacted your overall success. With a project of this size and technical complexity, a lot of things were bound to www.iltanet.org Project Management 21