Earlier today I attended the Association of Corporate Counsel's CLE Web Cast on Legal Project Management, which is now available on the ACC Web site as an archived recording. The one-hour CLE program, sponsored by the Huron Consulting Group, was presented by Nancy Jessen, a Managing Director a Huron Consulting Group, and Elizabeth A. Jaworski, Director or Motorola's Law Department Business Operations.
This was one of the better and more informative Web casts on legal project management that I've attended. It covers much of the same ground that similar project-management-for-lawyers-in-only-an-hour programs do, but also included some interested statistics on the adoption of LPM in corporate legal departments as well as live polling of the attendees.
The program began with making a connection between LPM and alternative fee structures (or value-based billing if you prefer). Ms Jaworski then gave some background on Motorola's business units and the legal challenges presented by the impending split of the company into two independent, publicly-traded companies. She points out the obvious fact that cost control and limited resources are driving how legal services are delivered. But see goes on to make an interesting analogy:
"Outside counsel are no longer like General Contractors."
This is an important concept and nicely sums up what I see in the changing relationships corporations have with their outside counsel. No longer does the outside law firm select and manage all players providing service on a legal matter. The days of the law firm hiring the contract reviewers, electronic-discovery vendors, and co-counsel are going away. Corporations are unbundling legal services, internalizing more legal work, and involving more players. This is putting pressure on corporate legal departments to take on project management to provide direction, continuity, and oversight.
In their explanation of project management, project manager, and program manager, Jaworski and Jessen use the standard definitions found in PMI's A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge: (Pmbok Guide). This is the only legal project management Web cast I've attended that's address program management at all.
When describing project management they threw up a grid showing the project components, best practices, PM tools, and existing tools that law departments are likely to have on hand, such as MS Excel, MS Project, and matter management/e-billing systems. They did not, however, talk about how these tools can be fit together into a complete system. I admit that is a lot to ask for a one-hour presentation, but throwing up a grid like that and not taking it all the way is just being a tease.
When discussing the role of the Project Manager they make a very important point that is commonly overlooked in legal environments: the project manager needs to be involved at the onset. Another important point they make about project managers that I don't see discussed much is that PM's are typically not "decision makers." As Jaworski puts it, a project manager is "someone who doesn't make decisions, but connects people with questions to appropriate people with answers."
That seems to fly in the face of the PMI attitude of the PM who stands large and is in charge, but it's not. PM are in charge of (or should be) running their projects, it's true. And there are many decisions they need to make, but they are running the project for someone else who sets the overall goal. They are custodians of the project for its sponsor and stakeholders. Ideally, they steer the ship to coordinates provided to them. Jaworski points out that this will not work in every organization. Some simply don't have the resources to assign just the project management work to one person. In many firms and legal departments, the PM will also be one of the attorneys. Attorney LPMs in many environments will find themselves managing the projects they sponsor.
Next they threw up some statistics that surprised me. According to "The Second Annual Law Department Operations Survey" 36% percent of those responding stated that they have dedicated project managers in their legal departments. Frankly, this seems high. I'll have to get my hands on a copy of the survey they citied and look at the numbers and the makeup of the responding organizations.
They go on to show a program and project management case study based upon the Electronic Discovery Reference Model and discuss various project management tools, including planning software, RASCI matrices, and communication plans. Unlike most presentations on LPM, the presenters actually recommended MS Project as a tool for legal departments to use in planning and managing complicated matters. Most programs I've sat through generally mention MS Project as something intimidating that provides more process overhead than necessary.
A live survey of the Web cast's attendees showed that most rated their departments' PM capabilities as generally low, whereas their ratings of their outside counsels' PM abilities was more balanced. The presenters postulated that this was likely due to outside counsel traditionally playing a "general contractor" role and, therefore, more experienced with managing complex matters with many players.
At the end of the presentation they left the attendees with a number of parting tips, including:
- define the project management role, rather than assuming that someone will take it on;
- make project management an explicit process within expected case management activitites; and
- provide your staff with project management training and tools.
The presentation was well worth the hour of my time and staying up late for.
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