The triangle of people, process, and technology is the cornerstone of any enterprise. But when I mentioned it at a social event the other day while discussing legal tech, my counterpart responded with Law is a people business!
Is that true? And if it isn’t, why do so many lawyers think they can lead their businesses without proper processes and technology?
It is tempting to think of law as being solely about humans – after all, the main assets are the law school powered brains and it is essentially a business of humans giving work to humans.
But to harness this asset and deliver on the task, processes and tech are essential.
In non-lawyer terms: you can’t make your dinner with just the ingredients – you need a recipe and the stove as well.
People + process + technology
The people, process, technology (PPT) methodology states that within any organisation, you need to pay attention to these three components and their interplay.
Your goal is to keep your triangle balanced and maintain healthy relationships among the three.
Each one has its strengths and weaknesses. With due attention, you can deliberately leverage or minimise all pros and cons.
Therefore, the best solution to any challenge is quite often to create a healthy mixture.
This is not to say that you absolutely have to throw tech at every problem you face – but giving it due consideration should be on your to-do list in any case.
People problems, process problems, technology problems
When we get to the realm of troubleshooting, it is a good idea to get to the root of the problem first, before randomly going for the first solution that comes to mind.
This thinking can also help us get past the blaming stage and toward constructive resolution.
The assessment in which category this problem falls into is usually leaning into the point of view of the person rendering the judgment. A tech person defending a confusing program will say “it’s a people problem – they don’t know how to use this properly!“, while the lawyers will likely complain “Oh my, the stupid program does not work as I please AGAIN.”
People problems
Anecdotally speaking, I believe that people problems are likely the most frequent ones when it comes to change management.
People problems can range in any of the below and more:
- Confusion and poor communication
- Resistance / Refusal to the change in general
- Lack of motivation to learn with new tools (here is what to do about it)
- Mindsets that hinder innovation (like these five that lawyers should drop ASAP)
- Insufficient training (maybe these tips could help)
- Convenience of keeping things as they are
- Rigidity in choice of solution (someone really wants this tool to be used)
- Expecting very quick results
These may be viewed as tech problems (as Josh Kubicki brilliantly pointed out in Brainyacts, it is quite convenient to blame the “AI overlords” for everything humans get wrong about the technology).
But while it would be easy to blame the person for these issues, I believe that the root of evil usually lies one step back: in the design of your change management process.
As Valérie Saintôt mentioned during my time at Bucerius Law School, “the belief that people don’t want to change is a justification of the agent’s failure.“
So perhaps this Intro to Change management can help with this struggle.
Process problems
Process problems usually stem from one of four key sources:
- inadequate attention to the status quo before making changes
- overmanagement and bureaucracy
- undermanagement – as Aku Sorainen mentioned on a panel we shared, habit is not a process.
- lack of iteration over time
If there is a glitch or inefficiency in the way things are done, it may be time to take a hard look at how you set it up in the first place.
Map your systems and your processes to see what exactly happens and why it might be going wrong.
But spoiler alert: you may end up realising you are dealing with a people problem anyway.
Computer / Tech problems
Tech issues can range from the first hand (something just crashes and refuses to work) to the more subtle, design issues (it is too complicated to begin with).
The spotlight on tech problems usually goes to the following:
- Outages / Glitches / Unreliability
- Subpar / Abysmal User Experience and bad design
- Lack of integration possibilities (“enveloping”), meaning having isolated systems that are incompatible with the rest of your stack
- Jacob’s Law – the users spend the majority of their time with different tech tools (which are usually much better done, such as social media apps or banking), so they will expect similar behaviour from yours. If that doesn’t happen, you get anger.
Once a tech problem occurs, the options are usually limited – you might have to talk to the vendor, the IT department, or try to find a workaround. Or sometimes, if you are lucky, a simple training will do.
Instead, your best bet is to treat your tech procurement process very seriously (including those endless tech demos), and involve as many stakeholders as possible before giving the green light.
Shrnutí na konec
Law is a people business! somebody said to me the other day at a party while we were discussing legal tech. Calmly, I follow the main rule of improv theatre and respond: yes, and if done right, law is also a process and technology business.
Co myslíte?
How do you approach the design of your business?
-Baru
