ILTA White Papers

The Business of Law

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ILTA White Paper The Business of Law 12 prevent the occurrence; the contingency plan, which is what the team will do should the event occur; and the trigger, representing a clear signal that the event has come to pass. Continue to track each risk on a regular basis –– weekly for most projects –– until the probability goes to 0 percent, meaning it can no longer occur, or 100 percent, meaning that it has happened. Involve the project team in risk tracking; the more eyes and ideas, the better –– within the limits of client confidentiality, of course. • Project Management Software: Most standalone project management software is ill-suited for "accidental" project managers. First, the tools are complex, have steep learning curves and are designed for professional project managers. Second, people often place inappropriate emphasis on those mechanics of project management that can be most clearly defined, such as scheduling. They can provide the illusion of control without a corresponding lowering of risk or increase in delivered value. Index cards tacked to a corkboard above a horizontal timeline can outdo high-end software for many projects and for many project managers. Keep it simple and manageable. Extremely complex projects with many moving parts may benefit from more sophisticated scheduling and tracking tools, but those are the same limited set of legal projects that would also benefit from a professional project manager assisting the team. • Communicating and Sharing Knowledge: One indispensible communication tool these days is e-mail; however, the old-fashioned telephone may be even more effective in certain circumstances. (As Marshall McLuhan noted, the medium often is the message.) Equally important are tools for sharing documents, status and knowledge among the project team. SharePoint is excellent in this regard, especially when coupled with tools to help locate and refine information. If you're not already using a tool such as SharePoint, consider a prebuilt extranet-plus- workspace to facilitate communication, knowledge sharing and institutional memory. SuMMary Attorneys can use legal project management to succeed in managing cases even as they do the legal work necessary to succeed substantively in those cases, and they can do so without process overhead or obfuscating buzzwords. Becoming a truly effective attorney project manager takes practice, as well as training and coaching; however, LPM also provides practical techniques, tips and tools that attorneys can put to use immediately. Legal project management helps attorneys succeed with their projects in ways that go directly to the firm's bottom line or the department's P&L –– controlling costs, meeting schedules, managing risks and maintaining sanity while doing so. iLTa

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