Legal Project Management is a hot topic nowadays, and understandably so. Done right, it can make your legal team the leader among your peers. Clients are also requiring their legal service vendors to prove they know how to manage projects, before they even decide to engage them.
Since legal project management became a fine line between being hired or not, it is very important that you dive deeper into this subject.
In this article we focus on Agile project management method, and you can read the following:
- What is Agile, and how it started;
- Starting Agile terminology, so you can research deeper on the topic;
- What is the Kanban method, why experts recommend it, and how our clients use it;
- How can you and your legal team start with and benefit from Agile methods.
Special thanks to Kenneth Grady, Paul Saunders, and Antony Smith for their contribution to this article.
Go Agile with LegalTrek Kanban Project Management system
Kenneth drew my attention to very important questions that law firm partners and leaders of legal teams have to ask before stepping into Agile. Paul laid out practical steps that he takes when motivating his legal team to transit to Agile. Antony pointed me to his introductory article on Agile from 2012, where he explained the correlation between value pricing and Agile methods.
I have included their views below, as well as other helpful resources that you may want to explore. Thank you for reading.
How Agile movement started
Fifteen years ago in the Wasatch mountains of Utah, a group of ‘organizational IT anarchists’ gathered. These software professionals had excellent experience in various project management methodologies. With their combined efforts, a unique new method for developing software was created. They called it “The Agile Manifesto.” What they believed is that the Agile approach is all about delivering good products to customers. That’s why they outlined 12 fundamental principles of Agile Software Development.
Today, Agile is a common term used by software engineers. Cisco, Microsoft, Spotify, and Salesforce are just some of the popular names using it. But Agile is applied not only to software development. A study shows that 48% of project managers use Agile solutions for projects that aren’t IT-related.
Agile as a Management Tool for non-it Industry: An Insight; Study by Software Advice
The legal industry is no exception. In this article, we will go through the main terms used in Agile, and see how they apply to law firms. You’ll read which processes of your law firm can use them, and what are the benefits of implementing Agile.
What is Agile legal project management?
Agile refers to legal project management that encourages continuous improvement, collaboration, adaptation, team efforts and rapid delivery of valuable legal services.
Here are some of the best descriptions of the term Agile in relation to law practice. According to Roya Behnia, Chief Legal Executive, an Agile Manifesto for lawyers would look like this:-
- continual collaboration with clients;
- commitment to flexibility and rapidity;
- direct communication rather than complex documentation;
- continual focus on client goals;
- realistically weighing risk; and
- a strong bias toward simplicity.