Many in our industry will agree that the pandemic is setting this planning season apart from those of previous years. As we look to 2021, many of the considerations that organizations took into account for 2020 — including remote work trends, how to connect with clients and consultants, and making the right tools and solutions available to employees — are carrying over into next year as we continue to navigate uncharted territory. As our industry continues to experience seismic shifts in the practice of law, the need for innovation — applying people, processes, and technology to do something better, faster, or more efficiently — has never been more important.
Most Americans are familiar with the story of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, the famed leaders of an expedition to navigate a path across the entire North American continent. Shortly after the Louisiana Purchase, Thomas Jefferson commissioned their work with the purpose of finding a path for conducting commerce across the expanding country.
In 1804, when the Lewis and Clark expedition departed St. Louis, the Pacific Ocean and the West Coast of North America were considered “known,” as Spanish explorers had managed to make their way across what is now Mexico, and James Cook had explored parts of the Pacific. Traders and trappers had outposts in areas like the Dakotas and several Native American nations populated the western part of the continent. The unknown factor — and what Lewis and Clark set out to find with the help of Sacagawea — was a reliable route to navigate from the East to the West, innovating not through discovery or invention, but in their search for a better way to do something that would pave the way for the future.
The story of Lewis and Clark provides some great lessons that we can all learn from when it comes to innovation. Here are three.
Innovation timelines aren’t always predictable. Today, if we were to plan a trip from St. Louis to Portland, Oregon, we’d have multiple options and routes to get there by air or on the ground. We could measure progress against our goal in distance or time.
It is not uncommon for leadership to expect a roadmap before engaging in a project — but innovation is often uncertain, and the expectation of certainty where progress can be measured like mile markers on a highway is problematic. Innovation almost by definition requires discovery and trial and error. That said, it can be helpful to map out segments of a project ahead of time (perhaps by weeks or months at a time) to help track progress.
Innovation may require different planning techniques. If we know that we can’t have certainty before starting a project, how then should leadership manage it?
In the case of Lewis and Clark, they learned from others who had chronicled prior explorations. They prepared by building a keelboat for the journey, recruited men and supplies, and when they had to scale rough terrain, they sent out scouts to determine the best route. Eventually they crossed the Continental Divide and streams began to flow westward and join other streams to form rivers.
What we can learn from this is that when it comes to applying technology in a law firm, leadership should allow some budget for “discovery work” to understand the parameters of a project and what is possible. A list of unknowns can be developed and assessed for risk. Alternatives can be “scouted” for possible solutions. Once those steps have been taken into account, say through a proof of concept, it is then possible to use more traditional project management techniques to estimate project costs and timelines.
Innovation is a process, not an event. Innovation projects typically include risk factors — after all, if the outcome were certain, it wouldn’t really be innovation. We may not have ever heard the story of Lewis and Clark had they not had the serendipity of meeting Sacagawea.
How many times have we heard statements like, “We tried that once, but it didn’t work”? The process of innovation is about learning from prior attempts and trying again. Nobody wants to embark on a big project and fail. A key to managing the process is to create small projects with defined scope, “fail fast,” and learn from the failure in order to create the next series of small projects to move the process forward. If you think about it, the Lewis and Clark expedition was a series of daily projects, determining how far the group should go before setting up camp for the night, or choosing what route they should take across a ridge. By structuring innovation into a series of smaller projects, with some experimentation and an allowance for failure, a firm can be successful in the story of a broader journey and adventure.
Legal professionals are under more pressure than ever to serve increasing demands. By recognizing that innovation isn’t always linear and predictable, and by managing accordingly, we have the opportunity to find better ways to innovate. And by recognizing that innovation is a process that embodies prior failed attempts that can inform new successes, organizations can be ready to embrace the brave new frontiers of serving clients in the world beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ken Crutchfield is Vice President and General Manager of Legal Markets at Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S., a leading provider of information, business intelligence, regulatory and legal workflow solutions. Ken has more than three decades of experience as a leader in information and software solutions across industries. He can be reached at ken.crutchfield@wolterskluwer.com.