Peer to Peer Magazine

24 PEER TO PEER: THE QUARTERLY MAGAZINE OF ILTA | SPRING 2017 Prioritize Interoperability As firms expand their IT ecosystems, the most important issue for IT leadership is interoperability. The biggest obstacles to investing in soware are the time and expense of systems integration. Most firms are saddled with legacy soware with poor architecture, a lack of universal standards and weak application program interface (API) support, requiring custom code for each new soware acquisition. Not only is this expensive but it forces IT leaders to be excessively conservative as they fear firms' IT platforms become ever more precarious Jenga towers with each new installation. IT leaders must demand soware designed with the future in mind, through modular architecture and robust API support. This mitigates the risk and expense of systems integration by allowing integrators to use proven rather than custom code. Firms that prioritize interoperability can install new soware more easily and cheaply, allowing them to take a nimble approach to soware investment unavailable to competitors. Adam McDonell Salladore www.salladore.com What part of IT operations should leadership focus on to improve service delivery? ASK THE VENDOR What part of IT operations should leadership focus on to improve service delivery? Improve Service Delivery Service delivery for IT has never been more critical nor more challenging. Key areas of focus should be: » Quality, consistent and deep relationships with key business stakeholders. » A clearly documented and agreed upon business strategy and related technical road map that is reviewed regularly. It should define leading and lagging key performance indicators regarding service delivery to evaluate accomplishments and implement course modications as the industry evolves. » The creation of a center of legal technology innovation to evaluate new technologies and their effect on the above. Mutual service delivery objectives between IT and the business will help all achieve the desired results. Jonathan Reed AdvoLogix www.advologix.com Expand Skill Sets Technology is evolving at an astounding rate, and it is imperative for every department to keep up with the changes. CIOs should focus on expanding their teams' skill sets to include customer service and training capabilities. Sending staff to professional development opportunities such as conferences is important but not always effective if they don't know how to share or apply their newfound knowledge. Ensuring your team can train end users on new technologies and processes is just as important as keeping up with the latest technology. Joe Kelly Legal Workspace hps://legal-workspace.com WANT TO APPEAR IN THE NEX T PEER TO PEER? Answer the following question: What will be the next disruptive technology within legal? Send responses (under 150 words) to kristy@iltanet.org by May 5.

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