Peer to Peer Magazine

31 WWW.ILTANET.ORG Geing Smart with a Lean and Agile Intranet Strategy CASE STUDIES PAUL SAUNDERS Paul Saunders is Stewart McKelvey's Practice Innovation Partner. Paul partners with lawyers and staff, both internal and external to the firm, to develop new tools and processes to solve the challenges they face. Paul's work, and that of his team in the firm's practice innovation department, results in streamlined processes, reduced costs and increased profitability. Using his background in IT and innovative approach to the practice of law, Paul applies his technical skills to offer clients greater efficiencies by leveraging cutting-edge technologies, process improvement techniques (Lean, Six Sigma, Agile) and creative problem-solving to maximize client value while minimizing costs and waste. Contact him at psaunders@ stewartmckelvey.com. Maer-Specific Content: Our lawyers love "My Maers" pages because they tie into all line of business applications (e.g., document management, email, financials) and produce comprehensive results in one place, versus everything being siloed in separate databases. This also provides an accurate account of what users are working on daily and gives them a reliable electronic data file. KM-Related Resources: "Practice Toolbox" is focused on knowledge management resources, including precedents, checklists and articles users might want to reference during research. When users find relevant content, they can tag it and quickly find it again because their custom home page saves these searches. Administrative Content: This section of SmartNet includes policies, procedures and non-core business information. Users can access dedicated administrative pages that have the same look and feel as other content pages, maximizing content familiarity and overall findability. SmartNet's "My Quick Tools" feature enables users to hand pick content — searches, news, financial metrics and client billing details, and frequently accessed research links — in order to design their own reference tool box. Portal Power While we only introduced SmartNet in mid-January, user response has been overwhelmingly positive. User adoption is up, content use and sharing have increased, and overall access to relevant, client-focused information is unprecedented. Based on user feedback, our biggest SmartNet successes include: » A User-Centric Portal: Users can customize portal content, maximizing overall relevancy and usability. Tight integration with other business databases and applications enables the creation of dynamic file lists and maer content within a single click. 1 2 3 » Organized Content: Three distinct buckets of content (maers, KM and admin) with custom taxonomies and features provide reliable, organized content in a central hub. » Consistent Branding: Using preconfigured page skins, the firm was able to create a consistent user experience across department pages. » Universal Search: Easy access to line-of-business applications from one central portal location has led to increased database access and information use. One enterprise search now yields relevant results from all integrated databases and third- party data sources. » Financial Dashboards: By adding customizable "My Quick Tools" information to the portal's home page, users have instant insights into billing and collection metrics, cash flow details, and client financials. Lean and Agile Lessons Learned Rather than develop a solution imposed on lawyers and staff, we directly engaged them in creating a portal vision and what it could mean for client service. SmartNet has grown far beyond a simple intranet portal and is now a one-stop shop for all the firm's content, resources, databases, applications and tools, each uniquely customized to the user. Integrated into the structure of SmartNet are process maps, automated document assembly templates and other tools developed in partnership between the firm's practice innovation department and its lawyers and staff. By taking a fresh, pragmatic, Lean-influenced approach to portal design, we developed a comprehensive KM and intranet platform all firm users can access and enhance, presenting content based on how users need it and look for it. P2P

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