Gimbal’s Process Improvement Tip of the Week: Picking the Best Project Team

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Karen and I are just back from the west coast, where we started a new client engagement  focused on staffing transactions and allocating work in the M&A practice at a leading AmLaw 100 firm.

A lot of planning goes into a successful process improvement initiative. You need a solid business case and a tight scope, and you need consensus on what success looks like. This past week reminded us of the importance of another part of the planning phase: make sure you’ve got the right mix of people on your project team.

Everyone sees the process from a different perspective, and you will need all of those perspectives to improve what you do.

We started this particular project as we always do, with a survey completed in the week prior to our first visit onsite, and our Delegation Express Course. We always run an eight-wastes exercise in our workshops—there is no better way to find opportunities to make your process (any process) better. You can do it with your own work, using our free Eight Wastes Workbook and our posts on finding waste in your practice.

Then we jumped into the current-state mapping session with the Project Team. The goal was to understand:

• how the “typical” mid-market sell-side M&A transaction currently unfolds,
• how the deal is staffed, and
• how work is allocated.

When you’re mapping, it’s critically important to have the right mix of people and perspectives. You want people who actually DO the work at every level from assistant up to partner because you need to know what really happens, not what people think should happen.

You also need strong leadership capable of creating a really safe environment where everyone, no matter their role or seniority, feels they can speak their mind freely about what’s working and what’s not working in the process.

In the run-up to the kick-off of our newest engagement, we spent a lot of time discussing the project team with the project sponsors. And it paid off.

This particular project team consists of partners, including the past and present practice group leaders, associates of various levels, paralegals, and an executive legal assistant.

Although the current state mapping session got off to a slow start, people soon overcame their inhibitions. Those who felt shy or uncertain were encouraged by others to trust and engage. And there was obvious, visible leadership, with one partner frequently sitting on the floor working the map with colleagues, adding yellow process blocks and annotating the wireframe with pink (frustrations) and blue (ideas) stickies!

Because we had the right mix of people, representing a cross-section of subject matter experts and perspectives, and because strong leaders fostered a safe and mutually respectful environment, we ended up with a lot of thoughtful conversation, leading to some keen insights and a number of very significant Ah Ha moments.

As one of the lead partners said,

“I came away from our working sessions feeling enlightened by what I learned and energized by the potential ahead – I think there is real opportunity for us to make meaningful improvement.”

That is the power of picking the right project team.

And that’s it for this week’s tip. Join us next week for more on building a more profitable and productive law practice.

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