On Monday 18th March, in sponsorship with Automated Outcomes, ILTA hosted it's third Projects & Business Analysis SIG meeting in London. The aim of the SIGs is to provide an opportunity for members in local firms to participate in useful discussions with peers in job role and work remit. This time our topic for discussion was 'Prioritisation of Work & Resource Management'. Many thanks to our speakers, Alexa Isaacs (RPC) and Dale Hodgkinson (Slaughter and May), who delivered some incredible insights on how they manage workloads, define and allocate project resources and also work closely with their businesses colleagues to ensure that they're always (or at least as close to "always" as possible) working on the top priority projects and initiatives in alignment with strategic organisational goals.
Top insights included:
- Truly costing your projects at the outset; always include your internal resource costs because things happen, e.g. other projects try to steal your resources, people leave, etc. Truly costing your project also demonstrates due diligence to the business, i.e. the REAL cost of a project (which isn't just software licences!). As people who charge their clients for their time and expertise, lawyers should understand that nothing in life is free
- Roadmapping and taking customers on a journey; setting realistic expectations as to when work can be delivered... mindful of the constraints and dependencies under which we all work
- Triage; sitting down with business colleagues on a frequent and regular basis to (re-)prioritise work in line with changing business priorities; making the BUSINESS decide what projects to do next (armed with all of the facts, including costs)
- Initiatives are not projects (!), they are simply ideas that require more work to understand what a project would cost, how long it would take to deliver, any complexities in making the proposed changes, etc.... A project has a business case to support it... and an approved budget!
- Lastly, there are (understandably) different practices in place for managing pipelines across the breadth of firms. Ultimately, everybody is doing their utmost in the best interests of their respective firms
A special thank you to Elissa Brady and RPC for hosting us and to our sponsor Automation Outcomes.
It was another truly insightful meeting, with colleagues from firms across the legal spectrum. It's great to see everyone coming together to share their knowledge and experience in the interest of the greater good. If you're not already on our Projects & Business Analysis SIG distribution list and would like to join, please complete the form linked below and select 'Projects & Business Analysis' for the distribution list.
ILTA Special Interest Group (SIG) Registrations
We hope to see you at a future event!
Article by Riccardo Lamarra (Howard Kennedy) - Projects & Business Analysis SIG Chair