[The first in series of four articles on this subject by Rachel Shields Williams, Rachel Cohee, and Kieron Champion – BIO info below:]
While some law firms dedicate time and resources to developing expertise in project management, far fewer have employed product management disciplines.
This matters because the increased role of technology in a law firm, and the expectations of those that use it, demands a focus on the end-user and continuous improvement. On the other hand, project management emphasizes task completion and execution, timelines, and key-dates. Upon the launch date, success is declared and those involved move to the next firm project.
However, the manner in which we consume and rely upon technology has changed forever.
Consider how we've all grown accustomed to new feature releases on our personal devices. In fact, not only have we grown accustomed to regular releases (and adopt them without the need for training manuals or guidance) we even expect and demand them, as our expectation of technology to positively impact our lives increases.
Why haven't we taken a similar approach to the likes of Apple or Amazon when designing and deploying technology within law firms?
Why do we continue to expect users to interact with the same piece of technology for years and do so in the exact same way without consideration for changing user preferences or business requirements?
A product management approach enables firms (and those responsible for technology initiatives) to be collaborative, user-centric, and shift towards a focus on continuous improvement that can result in increased product relevance and customer satisfaction, improved usage and adoption, and greater ROI.
The most successful Experience Management initiatives are viewed as living and breathing programs that must continue to evolve...
Experience Management as a Product
The most successful Experience Management initiatives are viewed as living and breathing programs that must continue to evolve - to reflect changes in firms and their work, preferences of users, and evolution in related technology.
Those firms that have the most successful Experience Management programs have taken a deliberate decision to move to a product management approach from the outset. So how do they do that and where do they begin?
With a product roadmap!
A product roadmap is a critical tool and vital first step since, once developed, it provides a clear guide for those charged with managing the product and users of the product as to how the product will be developed over time and for what purpose and outcome.
Building a Product Roadmap
- Start by defining the use case
It is undoubtedly exciting to think about all of the problems experience management can help solve (in our view they are amongst the most impactful initiatives a firm can undertake!), but in order to meet project deadlines, assist with user adoption, and ensure long term success, starting with a clearly defined use case is critical. Firms often buy a product hoping it will combine critical data in a single system, assist with win/loss reporting for proposal opportunities, drive the collection, capture and reporting of experiential data, and integrate with third-party data, but those problems cannot be solved at a single time. Keep the other use cases handy for your long term roadmap.
- Build a roadmap aligned to business objectives and defined use cases
When building a roadmap, keep it pragmatic and ensure it accounts for dependencies, business objectives, and realistic timelines. And then sequence the work accordingly. With experience management, there are no shortage of dependencies. For example, it's hard to build a proposal document without representative matters available; or lawyer adoption is difficult without the proper training for business support first. With dependencies in mind, what use cases can you accomplish over time? Are those aligned with pain points felt across different business units? Do those help to meet needs that are important to firm strategy and growth?
Why Bother?
Developing a product roadmap does not need to be time-consuming. However, it is still surprising to see many firms not employ a product management approach or develop a clear roadmap to support significant investments in technology. Those that do can expect to benefit from the following.
- Vision
A product roadmap ensures that there is a clear vision aligned with firm strategy. As a firm-wide initiative, experience management projects impact a number of stakeholders and with a roadmap in place, the firm can understand where they are going, when, and who this impacts.
- Sustainability
Product releases allow for the growth of a sustainable solution that is flexible, meeting user needs as they evolve over time. This allows you to introduce new features that build on existing functionality, keeping users engaged and allowing the product and related use cases to continuously improve. Without this, products can easily become stagnant, quickly becoming outdated and underused.
- Resourcing
With a sustainable solution in place that drives process and business change with each new release, firms can begin to build teams around the product, ensuring the success and upkeep of the program, and related processes and data. This is not something that can be done overnight but as firms begin to see, and benefit from, each success the benefits for a product management approach become clear.
- Change
Experience management programs often have a major impact on process and workflow, changing how a firm (and individuals) collect, interact with, and report on data. By focusing on specific use cases at a defined time, determined and communicated via a product roadmap, you can prevent change fatigue, allowing users to adjust to these changes so they become ingrained in their daily work.
The movement from project management to product management takes a set of skills new to legal, but not new to the professional service industry. In our next two articles we will discuss the component of successful product management and then the skills needed to execute on this next stage in the evolution of legal technology.
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Rachel Shields Williams is a Director, Knowledge Management, at Sidley Austin. Kieron Champion is a Partner, and Rachel Cohee a Consultant, at Fireman & Company.
