Peer to Peer Magazine

52 PEER TO PEER: THE QUARTERLY MAGAZINE OF ILTA | SUMMER 2017 Drive Superior Lawyer Experiences Through Design Thinking FEATURES Consider whether the project's focus is technology, process re-engineering, policies or best practices, or all of the above. What will the fixed problem look like in daily work life? What feelings arise from the idea of resolving this problem? Are there any incidental benefits to addressing this issue? If you are tackling a problem via design thinking where emotion is high and the satisfaction of the client is of utmost importance, you will oen discover unvoiced frustrations and questions that result in small changes to the design and contribute to the overall positive experience. Read between the lines and stay auned to political and cultural hurdles you might encounter. What kind of functionality (both known and unknown to the lawyers) must the system possess? What tools do you already have that can be leveraged? What are the functionality gaps in those tools, and can they be resolved with changes in process and procedure, or is a custom-developed bridge/patch/add-on needed? What are the pros and cons of introducing new soware and processes for using the new system? Leverage your relationships with your soware vendors and service providers. Sometimes a feature enhancement to bridge a gap in your technology functionality or process is just what they need to provide new value to other customers. Talk to your peers for ideas, and try not to reinvent the wheel. Prototype: A first prototype is where the rubber hits the road, when you can measure how close (or how far away) you are to the solution to the problem. Real users must be included in every prototype iteration. Design thinking leaders should be engaged to observe, capture and articulate what is good, what falls short and what is missing. Inevitably the prototype exposes a step (or 50) not included in the requirements because users did not communicate tasks they complete instinctively. The new prototype can trigger an even beer way to design the solution. Usability guru Norman Nielsen talks about "cognitive load," meaning how much thinking is necessary to figure out how to do something. Remember that aorneys have a low tolerance for a high cognitive load. Test (and Refine): Implementing a new technology, process or training approach for your design thinking project is an iterative endeavor. Each iteration and revision gets you closer to a complete understanding of what is needed — and can also generate new ideas and requests from lawyers as they come to realize that your goal truly is to make this work for them and not to make them conform to your new system. Have a change management approach in place to manage expectations and emotions throughout the change. You will need to communicate the importance of assigning value to enhancements outside the scope of the project and know how to say "no" or "not yet" to avoid scope creep. You do not want to discourage creative thinking, yet you want to capture things that can be applied to future projects. It will be important to establish a facilitator in the first three phases in the framework. Emotions can be high and tensions oen rise when discussing frustrations. A good facilitator can diffuse conflict and keep discussions on track and productive. A good facilitator uses design thinking skills as a maer of practice. Throughout the entire process, engage all of those who are involved in the ideation, design, prototype and test phases. Doing so ensures that all participants have an opportunity to provide their comments, suggestions and critiques. We have found that in team or group Inevitably the prototype exposes a step (or 50) not included in the requirements because users did not communicate tasks they complete instinctively. THERE'S MORE ONLINE! Find past articles on design thinking at iltanet.org/pubs. PEER TO PEER: SUMMER 2016 pg. 42 PEER TO PEER: SUMMER 2016 pg. 46

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