Today I attended, via Web cast, the American Law Institute and American Bar Association (ALI-ABA) continuing legal education course on project management for lawyers.[1] The instructor was time-management-for-lawyers guru Margaret Spencer Dixon.[2]
Ms Dixon's two-hour lecture provided a crash course in project management, tailored for a legal audience. I had predicted that this would not be a standards-based course, but rather a discussion of general principals of "project management" as the term is loosely defined.[3] I was wrong.
Although Ms Dixon kept the presentation lawyer-friendly, I was surprised at how much standard project-management terminology and practices she covered. Unlike most project-management-for-lawyers courses I've attended, Ms Dixon kept the candy coating to a minimum. I believe this is the correct approach.[4] Despite common jokes suggesting otherwise, lawyers are especially adept at acquiring new knowledge and familiarizing themselves with highly technical information outside their areas of expertise. There is no need to dumb down project management for lawyer audiences. If anything, those of us promoting project management to lawyers need to give it to them straight so we can demystify the discipline and help lawyers better see the potential for immediate, practical implementation of project management to their practices. In this, Ms Dixon's lecture was a success.
Her definition of "project management" was strait out of the PMI's Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge:
What is a project? From a project management perspective, a project is a unique undertaking with a specific objective or objectives, a specific starting date, and a specific ending date. For example, most litigation, transactions, and negotiations would be considered projects. In contrast, legal work such as, for example, dealing with a client's on-going requests for specific advice regarding the application of employment law to specific situations would not be considered a project (again, from a project management perspective). The person in charge of managing the work of a project involving a multi-person project team is, in effect, the project manager for that project (even if that person has never been officially identified as such).[5]
On the other hand, her lecture was not a PMP prep course and she presented her own reformulation of project management principles as applied to the practice of law. She began her presentation by emphasizing the need to keep project management techniques simple to avoid over-managing and creating unnecessary busy work. The following is the outline for the project management model that Ms Dixon presented:
THE START PHASE
Stage 1: Define the project
Stage 2: Plan the project
Stage 3: Launch the project
THE PERFORM PHASE
Stage 4: Monitor the progress of the project and adjust the project plan as needed
THE FINISH PHASE
Stage 5: Evaluate the project
Stage 6: Close out the project [6]
Ms Dixon encouraged lawyers who implement project management into their practices to approach initial consultations like scoping exercises, to ensure that the lawyer clearly understands what the client (the project "sponsor" in PM speak) wants to accomplish. The lawyer should discuss with the client the "triple constraints" of time, budget, and performance/scope and clearly document the project scope that the client agrees to.
Out of the initial consultations and scoping exercises that she discussed, the lawyers should develop an "initiation document" (i.e. project charter). I'm not sure how this differs from an engagement letter. For many legal projects, I would think that the engagement letter should act as the project charter, clearly defining the scope of the representation.
She also emphasized the need for a project plan, which can be as simple as a bullet-point list, but may be much more detailed and prepared with the assistance of project-management software for more complex matters. In any event, she advised that the project plan should be "as short, clear, and concise as possible."[7]
Ms Dixon went on to discuss a number of project management tools and techniqutes, including: work breakdown structures, brain-storming exercises and software, activity sequencing and network diagrams, PERT analysis, GANTT charts, and risk management planning.[8]
After planning is complete, she recommended holding a task delegation meeting and preparing and task delegation logs. She also suggested holding regular status meetings to monitor the progress of the work and she introduced the concept of "critical path" and why it is important to know which tasks are on it.[9]
Finally, she covered the steps lawyers should take in wrapping up a legal matter, including:
- putting together a checklist of questions to ask the client to ensure that expectations were met;
- holding a lessons-learned meeting and preparing a lessons-learned report; and
- looking over all checklists, reports, and other materials created for the matter and determining which should be turned into standard templates and samples for future matters.[10]
The study materials included a number of templates and samples of the documentation discussed in the presentation, including project initiation document, project plan, work breakdown structure, network diagram, agenda for various types of meetings, delegation logs, progress and lessons learned reports, and more.[11] While helpful, I would have liked for the templates, such as the project plan, to have been provided as completed samples. I think many lawyers, especially those unfamiliar with project management-documentation, would find it helpful to see what a complete document might look like.
For those samples that were included, such as the work breakdown structure and network diagram, I was disappointed that she used a "firm retreat" as the example.[12] I would have like to have seen these samples based upon a legal matter. These are, however, minor quibbles.
My biggest complaint, however, has nothing to do with Ms Dixon's presentation. The ALI-ABA Web cast platform's poor design greatly detracted from my enjoyment of the lecture. The streamed video was embedded as a small Windows Media Player widget in the course's Web page. This small viewing area made it difficult to read the text when PowerPoint slides were shown, especially during those times when a split-screen view of both speaker and slide was used. Using Windows Media Player to pop the video out and view full screen would be simple enough, but the Web site contained the following warning prominently displayed below the video:
"If you are seeking CLE or CPE credit, please do not use full-screen mode. Full-screen mode will prevent the tracking of your participation as required for credit" (emphasis in the original).
I'm surprised that ALI-ABA would make such a poor design decision. There must be a way to verify attendance, sufficient to meet most bar association requirements, without such a user-unfriendly limitation. This was annoying enough to ensure that I'll first look elsewhere for CLE courses in the future.
Overal, I feel that the presentation and course materials provide a useful introduction to project management and can help lawyers take the first steps towards implementing project management principles and tools in their legal practices. If you are looking for a couple credits of CLE, I recommend this program, despite the poor viewing experience created by ALI-ABA's flawed platform.
[1] Margaret Spencer Dixon, Project Management for Lawyers, ALI-ABA Professional Skills course (Dec. 9, 2009); see course description at http://www.ali-aba.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=courses.course&course_code=CR603 (last visited Dec. 10, 2009).
[2] See Ms Dixon's on-line profile at http://www.timemanagementforlawyers.com/about-meg-spencer-dixon/ (last visited Dec. 10, 2009).
[3] Paul C. Easton, ALI ABA Offers Project Management for Lawyers CLE Course,Legal Project Management, Jan. 1, 2009, available at http://legalprojectmanagement.info/2009/10/ali-aba-offers-project-management-for-lawyers-cle-course.html (last visited on Oct. 28, 2009).
[4] Paul C. Easton, Of Project Management, the Lawyer Doth Protest Too Much, Methinks,Legal Project Management, May. 15, 2009, available at http://legalprojectmanagement.info/2009/05/of-project-management-the-lawyer-doth-protest-too-much-methinks.html (last visited on Oct. 28, 2009).
[4] Margaret Spencer Dixon, Study Materials for Project Management for Lawyers, ALI-ABA course (Dec. 9, 2009)(on file with author), at 15.
[5] Id at 16. C.f., Project Management Institute, Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge 5 (4th Ed., 2008)(defining "project" as "[a] temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result. The temporary nature of projects indicates a definite beginning and end. The end is reached when the project's objectives have been achieved or when the project is terminated because the objectives will not or cannot be met, or when the need for the project no longer exists. Temporary does not necessarily mean short in duration.").
[6] Dixon, note 1 (from author's notes).
[7] Id.
[8] She defines the "critical path" as "the longest task sequence of the project" and warns "that a slippage in the critical path will result in a slippage in the project completion date ." Dixon, note 3, at 24.
[9] Id. at 32-33.
[10] Id. at 35-55.
[11] Id. at 38; Dixon, note 1.
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