Recently in Terms and Definitions Category

A recent post to the Discerning E-discovery Blog by Aaron Pippen, a Senior Project Manager at Fios, got me thinking about about gold-plating again.[1] By gold-plating I'm not referring to the dental procedure I've been saving up for, but rather the practice of enhancing a product or service beyond a customer's requirements. Mr. Pippen asks whether gold plating on e-discovery projects is necessary, concluding that while e-discovery project managers should provide value, delivering more than what is asked for is generally unwise and "can lead to undesirable issues."  For example, if a client asks for a specific report, they...

I wasn't going to post today. I've had a rare breathing space this Friday and have enjoyed cleaning out my in-boxes. But Steven Levy wrote a short post on his Lexician blog yesterday that created a small spark I wanted to capture, perhaps to think and write about more in a future post.His post, entitled "Project Science, Project Heart," shares a pair of acronyms that summarize the attributes of effective project management. They are:  STEM = Science, Technology, Engineering, Math. IDEA = Intuition, Design, Emotion, Art.[1] From these acronyms he draws the following observations: Every project manager understands the former. Too...

During my morning Google Alerts check, I came across a study that looks at the application of the Balanced Scorecard measurement system to legal departments. The article is titled Balancing Legal Scorecard - A Performance Management Tool for Corporate Excellence and is authored by Dr. R.Srinivasan, an associate professor at the Bharathidasan Government College for Women (Muthialpet, Puducherry, India).[1] The article defines a "Balanced Scorecard" as follows: The Balanced Scorecard (introduced by Kaplan and Norton) is a set of financial and non-financial measures relating to a company's critical success factors. It is an attempt to capture the essence of the organization's critical...

Dan Michaluk, an associate at Hicks Morley, recently discussed why project management is a key litigator competency on Slaw.CA.[1] His post discusses a number of points that this blog has covered in the past, but placed in a Canadian context.He starts with a quote from the Sedona Conference's Commentary on Achieving Quality in the E-Discovery Process endorsing legal project management and then provides a brief definition of "project management" taken from Wikipedia, without delving into too much detail (defining "legal project management" can be tricky).[2] Next, he points out that poor legal project management may have ethical implications: There are other sources of...

Last Thursday, Exterro gave an on-line presentation that discussed e-discovery project management in the context of their suite of legal work-flow tools.[1]  Co-presented by Natasha Keitges, Exterro's Senior Director of Business Development, and Pete Warner,[2] a litigation technology specialist at Sandia National Laboratories (an Exterro client),[3] the Web cast discussed how e-discovery project management fits into a company's government, risk, and compliance program and, more specifically, how applying project management processes to the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM)[4] can establish key efficiencies, cut costs, and allow legal departments to more effectively monitor the successes and failures of their e-discovery projects.  The presentation...

Productivity Guru David Allen's recent newsletter discusses two "project management" problems that should resonate with any legal project manager: (1) having a system that covers various projects requiring different levels of planning detail, and (2) integrating "horizontal vs. vertical" control.[1] Mr. Allen defines a project as "anything ... that is not likely to be finished with one action step."[2] This might be a broader sense of the term than most people intend when they talk of "projects," but adopting this definition helps highlight a common issue faced by legal project managers: I've never seen any two . . . projects that needed...

One of the benefits of maintaining this blog is that it brings me into contact with experts in the fields of legal project management, legal process improvement, and legal technology. It is my stepladder to the shoulders of giants. Recently, I've started approaching members of the legal and legal support communities to ask them to share their views on legal project management. Most have been very encouraging and willing to speak with me.A while back I came across Baker Robbins & Company's Project Management for Litigation Clinic. It was exciting for me to see a two-day program devoted entirely...

A few days ago Steven Levy wrote a toughtful and thought-provoking response to my post "Buying a Lathe Does Not Make You a Carpenter" in his Lexician blog. Steven B. Levy, Rethinking Legal Project Management Tools, Lexician, Sept. 21, 2009, at URL. In Rethinking Legal Project Management Tools, Levy argues that "standard project management tools" are not appropriate for most law firm environments. Not only that, but focusing on the software could cause efforts to implement project management to fail. In explaining why this is the case, Levy discusses what he sees as the three levels of project management. These are:...

Earlier today I attended the Fios webinar "Practical Tips on How to Lead Project Management Planning to Balance Scope, Time and Budget," presented by Amy Catton, Litigation Support Quality Coordinator at Kilpatrick Stockton and Kate Billera, Client Services Manager at Fios, Inc.  It was an informative and well-presented program on how to apply traditional project management principles to litigation projects. I recommend it to anyone who would like a basic introduction to legal project management. Fios generally makes its past webinars available on-demand for free at the Fios E-discovery Knowledge Center. Kudos to Fios for not being afraid to subject a legal audience to project management speak. Amy and Kate did a great job explaining traditional...

When I speak of legal project management, I generally have in mind the application of widely accepted project management standards, such as those promulgated by the Project Management Institute ("PMI"), to legal matters. The use of such project management standards is what distinguishes legal project management from more traditional "case management" approaches. Because most lawyers are unfamiliar with project management, they often undervalue it. My experience with most firms and legal staffing agencies is that "project manager" is just a label they slap on to someone they assign to manage part of a litigation matter (almost always discovery projects). For the overall...