Legal Innovation is inherently a change management job.
Regardless of whether you are a legal designer nebo legal ops professional, if you are to successfully innovate and implement any sort of improvements, you will need to change things.
But change does not just happen by itself – it requires planning and effort.
Being mindful about change management means you will have a greater chance of succeeding. And moreover, you won’t have to reinvent the wheel, but instead leverage tried and tested techniques.
What is change management?
Each change has two main components: logistics and transformation.
Logistics is product-oriented, i.e. what are you implementing and how is it going to get into the organization. It encompasses the integrations, the tech setup, the data migration, and other technical issues.
Transformation is a people problem. It is what the teams think about the change, its acceptance within the organization, the speed of its implementation, the learning curve management, and ultimately, its success.
Change management means that you proactively approach both people and the product, and all related processes.
How to design your change management processes
Before we start
Change management needs to be designed and intentionally set up. This means going through a thought process and having a good plan in place before you start implementing or changing anything. What this looks like will differ based on the specifics of your organization.
There is a lot of change management models out there. Here, I will follow a simplified sequence inspired by this HBR post, and heavily influenced by practice in law firms.
Change management stages
Prepare the atmosphere
- Evaluate the current situation – great tool is the Innovation Diffusion Worksheet from Legal Evolution available tady
- List out your stakeholders – who will be making the decisions? Who will actually have to use your solution? Who will be indirectly impacted?
- Gather your influencers – find those who have a good reputation in the company, regardless of seniority or rank. Involve the most knowledgeable assistant as well as the junior who is always on top of all the new tech.
- Drum up the vibe – talk to people about the change, why is it necessary, and how they will benefit from it.
- Listen to your users and what they need – and if they have input, let them help you. Best scenario is when your people identify with the changes being made.
- Consider sandboxing – it might be a good idea to test out your ideas on a smaller part of the organization first. Great for sourcing feedback, too.
Make a plan
Once you have done your research, it is time to make a plan. Your plan should at least include the following:
- Stakeholders (ideally with their user personas),
- Scope of the change,
- Implementation plan, including any trainings or awareness events,
- A change manager,
- The strategic objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs) in the form of SMART goals,
- The different phases of the transformation – smaller incremental changes are usually easier than big radical U turns, and
- Any flyers, manuals, or other artifacts to show to your users.
Implement the change
Now it is time to unleash the logistics as you have (hopefully) documented it in your change plan. The key is to keep your users informed and be transparent about how things are going.
This is also the time to get your users acquainted with the new setup. For trainings, you can get inspired by my method here. If you are planning a demo or an awareness raising session first, here are some tips and common pitfalls.
Sustain the change in the long term
Change is hard in itself, but it is even harder to make sure that your users will not slip back to the old known ways once you stop looking.
This means that you need to be diligent about having follow-ups with your users. Monitor the usage and other data you have available, and communicate them with your organization.
How you handle the change as well as the post-change phase will ultimately help you create your personal change management brand. If you do a good job and keep people happy through the challenging period, you are likely going to have an easier job next time.
Shrnutí na konec
Change is hard and working with lawyers doesn’t make it any easier.
But there are preparations that can help to make it happen. Key thing here is to be mindful and intentional about every single step in your change process.
What is your experience?
What worked for you?
-Baru
P.S.: This post is based on my notes for an introduction into the topic for a Czech legal operations community online meetup. We meet (almost) every month and it is always a fascinating discussion. If you want to join us, follow this LinkedIn page for more info.
