By: Kara Wen, Digital Marketing Specialist, SimpleLegal
Creating a change management plan is a lot like preparing to build a house: You can’t construct a sturdy structure without first creating a blueprint. And you won’t make much headway if you don’t have a system to monitor progress or inspect the finished project.
Why should legal ops care about change management?
Change management is the planning and execution behind moving a person, team, or organization from its current state to a new state. Within the legal department, legal operations professionals are emerging as the driving force behind change, implementing everything from new processes to new technologies.
Change management done with thoughtful preparation can facilitate a variety of positive outcomes, such as increased productivity and faster ROI, by ensuring that everyone affected by the change knows what to expect and understands what is required of them to succeed. Conversely, moving forward without a strategy can break your implementation success, resulting in wasted resources and low adoption by employees.
Setting your change management strategy
Your change management strategy is like the blueprint for your house. This is where you design the change you hope to make.
Behind any effective change management initiative is a solid strategy that brings together your organization’s culture, values, and people. Start by discussing an overall strategy for how change management will be carried out in your organization:
- What will be changing?
- Why is the change necessary?
- Who are the key stakeholders involved?
- How does the change affect stakeholders?
- When will the change begin?
- How long will the change process take?
Even if you think you know the answers to these questions, force yourself to answer them in detail. When you see everything on paper, you might decide to move a few things around, adjust your goals or timeline, or come up with new ideas to support the initiative.
Let’s say you’re changing your vendor invoicing process. Initially, you might plan to fully transition all outside law firms to LEDES file invoices over the course of two months. However, after taking a look at all of the stakeholders involved and their fee agreements, you may realize that four months is a more realistic goal.
Spending more time on your change management strategy also helps highlight potential obstacles. For instance, while planning the switch to LEDES file invoices, you might discover that 30% of your vendors are using legacy solutions that are not LEDES format compatible. If you discover that issue early on, you can work user onboarding, software training, and additional support into your change management plan.
Lay the groundwork for continuous improvementce and measure impact
As you continue to construct your change management plan, consider the following:
- Change management is a process, not an event – Throughout the process, involve and prepare all stakeholders and teams.
- Lay the foundation to move the organization forward – We love the word foundation, because a strong one really is critical to everything you do. When done right, change management creates a framework for increased adoption and minimizes productivity loss. That doesn’t just make for a good change management program, it makes for a strong future for the company as a whole.
- Change happens on two levels: organizational and individual – It’s easy to overlook individual contributions and how change will impact each employee, but they drive the company’s success. If you don’t already, consider implementing goal mapping so employees at all levels on your legal ops team can see how organizational goals impact individual goals and vice versa.
- One size does not fit all– All changes need to be viewed using a variety of lenses and with appreciation for the nuances of each organization.
Change is inevitable but suffering is optional
From moving offices to implementing new technologies, it’s impossible to avoid change. Although these changes are meant to be beneficial, a lack of clarity into managing change will lead to confusion or frustration. For legal operations professionals spearheading new initiatives, a detailed and strategic plan for communication and training ensures everyone is equipped with the tools needed to successfully face challenges head-on.
