Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/68817
Calling All Passengers: Your KM Journey Awaits Impactful Benefits for Critical Passengers Another shift I have noticed is related to how KM resources determine which projects and initiatives to tackle — and which to skip. The trend of jumping at each new piece of software or practice because it promises a more efficient way to deliver work product, manage matters and/or control costs is just not practical. Very few organizations have the luxury of unlimited resources and budgets to invest in every KM solution that comes along. Simply put, you can't boil the ocean. The economic pressures described above have inspired (some might say forced) those involved in KM efforts to take a more strategic, business-minded approach to identifying where they want to go and prioritizing the means with which they will get there. Specifically, the goals and objectives of today's most successful KM projects are framed in the context of where the organization wants to go in relation to economic goals for overall performance and growth. Initiatives that don't advance the organization toward its intended destination fall to the bottom of the KM to-do list or off the radar entirely. This shift to a more strategic approach to defining the KM priorities finds projects being vetted in the context of two specific questions: • How can KM be applied to strengthen and expand relationships with existing clients and between attorneys? • How can KM be applied to build new relationships by attracting the right clients and attorney talent? Defining KM priorities in the context of these key questions aligns projects and initiatives with the organization's intended destination, pointing everyone in the same direction. This alignment ensures that KM efforts speak to what is most important to the organization's leadership, its attorneys and its clients, and deliver the most impactful benefits for those critical passengers. In addition, this alignment can place the KM professionals in a position to provide real leadership within their organizations — keeping things moving and contributing to strategy discussions. BD Delivers a Good Message A third shift I have noticed has to do with who is involved in KM efforts and the messaging they use to describe these projects. In the past, KM projects and the related communications focused on features and functionality, and how those made it possible to service clients faster, better and cheaper. The messaging typically centered on discrete activities like drafting documents or conducting research. Even if the technical aspects of a given project were executed flawlessly, there was often a missing link when it came to really motivating the target audience to make enduring behavioral changes. Come to find out, the technical brilliance of a new KM tool or process just wasn't enough to entice those critical attorney and client passengers to get — and stay — on board … even with their increased interest in efficiency. Without an extra nudge, those passengers couldn't see the bigger picture and how the new "thing" fit into that view. Enter marketing and business development (M/BD). After all, this is one of the few groups almost exclusively focused on the attorney-client relationship and the factors that influence that relationship. Given the shift in emphasis toward defining goals in the context of strengthening existing relationships and building new ones, it seems only natural that M/BD team up with KM to map out a plan that takes into account what will motivate the target audience and incorporates messaging that ties directly to the ideas and challenges that are top- of-mind for attorneys and clients. M/BD professionals spend their days (and many nights) working directly with attorneys, practice leaders and senior management to understand what clients need and expect, and translating that understanding into strategies designed to address those needs and expectations. It is the M/BD professionals who draft ILTA White Paper 21