Project Planning

As legal professionals we have multiple obligations, not the least of which is to be able to pay our bills and keep our businesses viable. To that end, we must continually assess the best investment of our time and money. Project management needs vary depending on areas of practice and specific matters. For example, I had one client say to me, “I deal with quick-turnaround tax matters, there's no time for project planning. The matter hits my desk and I have to have it out the door within two days.” No doubt that this is true, but it's important to note that this particular partner also has many firm-wide obligations that are longer-term and with significant impact on the firm's operations. For those responsibilities, effective project management becomes one of the most cost-effective and powerful tools in your tool belt.

Why Project Management?

The sobering fact is we all have too many projects happening simultaneously to be able to track them all effectively. When I drill down with my clients, they will inevitably admit that they are all trying to keep track of their obligations with a tool not designed for such work ' the brain. Your brain is not designed to, nor can it, effectively manage more than seven serious projects at the same time. A number of important studies bear this reality out. Yet, we are all trying to keep our lives together using it in this way. I believe this to be the primary source for some of the most devastating and crippling decisions made in corporate America today.

That's the bad news, now the good news. It's a relatively easy fix. Just as almost all executives will admit to me that they are exhaustingly trying to manage too much information with the limited capacity of their brains, I also find that each and every one of them have adequate tools already on their desk to turn this dilemma around. Knowing how to better use the common Outlook program is basically all you need.

Step One: The List

Grab a sheet of paper and draw a line down the center. At the top of one side, write “personal.” At the top of the other, write “professional.” Then start to list all of the responsibilities that you think require a project plan. Important point here. The reason to list both personal and professional items is because you cannot be a truly successful person until both aspects of your life are on track. An executive who sacrifices her personal life for her professional career is kidding herself if she thinks the two are unrelated. If your home life is on the brink, your office life is not far behind. The goal of this process is for you feel truly satisfied and accomplished with your life by firing on all cylinders.

Step Two: Define Your Goal Clearly

It is very common in organizations that employ highly intelligent individuals for there to be conflicting and competing visions for the organizations. Having everyone working on his or her own agenda is a recipe for failure. When we do practice sessions with clients, this part of the process, clarifying the objective of the plan, often takes the most time. A slight shift in the objective can often result in a significantly different project plan.

Step Three: Break It Down

People often underestimate how much time and how many resources are required to cross the goal line. This is one reason there never seems to be enough time or money to get the job done right. When you break the process down task by task, in the right order, a number of critical benefits are gained. So start to write down each and every task, no matter how small, required to accomplish the goal. Since Americans are not typically a planning obsessive culture, it is common for planning to be a challenge for us. It is very important to try to put the right task in the right order. This takes practice. A tremendous amount of waste is produced when tasks are out of order and individuals have to go back and fix actions that were not timed properly. A very common complaint is that senior management often requests information with almost no lead time. This is particularly frustrating when it is clear these executives could easily have submitted the request days, if not weeks, earlier. This is all a function of poor planning and the costs to an organization are significant. Good project planning allows your staff to do its job in a reasonable manner without the costly stress and frustration of constant last-minute demands and interruptions.

Step Four: Calendar It

Creating a list of tasks (in order) is half the battle. The second half, and where all of the value is realized, is taking those individual tasks and putting them in your calendar. Failing to do this will create virtually no work flow efficiencies. As with everything else in life, the more your practice this process the faster you will become.

Taking all of these responsibilities out of the brain ' onto the paper ' and then calendaring them frees the mind to do what it does best. Your clients are paying you to analyze, communicate and execute a legal strategy on their behalf. With these myriad cerebral distractions out of the way (i.e., out of your prefrontal cortex), you can do a much better job producing legal work product, increasing clients' satisfaction and creating more future work.

Paul Silverman is the President of Integra Workshops, a firm that offers a variety of efficiency workshops to help professionals. He can be reached at [email protected].

As legal professionals we have multiple obligations, not the least of which is to be able to pay our bills and keep our businesses viable. To that end, we must continually assess the best investment of our time and money. Project management needs vary depending on areas of practice and specific matters. For example, I had one client say to me, “I deal with quick-turnaround tax matters, there's no time for project planning. The matter hits my desk and I have to have it out the door within two days.” No doubt that this is true, but it's important to note that this particular partner also has many firm-wide obligations that are longer-term and with significant impact on the firm's operations. For those responsibilities, effective project management becomes one of the most cost-effective and powerful tools in your tool belt.

Why Project Management?

The sobering fact is we all have too many projects happening simultaneously to be able to track them all effectively. When I drill down with my clients, they will inevitably admit that they are all trying to keep track of their obligations with a tool not designed for such work ' the brain. Your brain is not designed to, nor can it, effectively manage more than seven serious projects at the same time. A number of important studies bear this reality out. Yet, we are all trying to keep our lives together using it in this way. I believe this to be the primary source for some of the most devastating and crippling decisions made in corporate America today.

That's the bad news, now the good news. It's a relatively easy fix. Just as almost all executives will admit to me that they are exhaustingly trying to manage too much information with the limited capacity of their brains, I also find that each and every one of them have adequate tools already on their desk to turn this dilemma around. Knowing how to better use the common Outlook program is basically all you need.

Step One: The List

Grab a sheet of paper and draw a line down the center. At the top of one side, write “personal.” At the top of the other, write “professional.” Then start to list all of the responsibilities that you think require a project plan. Important point here. The reason to list both personal and professional items is because you cannot be a truly successful person until both aspects of your life are on track. An executive who sacrifices her personal life for her professional career is kidding herself if she thinks the two are unrelated. If your home life is on the brink, your office life is not far behind. The goal of this process is for you feel truly satisfied and accomplished with your life by firing on all cylinders.

Step Two: Define Your Goal Clearly

It is very common in organizations that employ highly intelligent individuals for there to be conflicting and competing visions for the organizations. Having everyone working on his or her own agenda is a recipe for failure. When we do practice sessions with clients, this part of the process, clarifying the objective of the plan, often takes the most time. A slight shift in the objective can often result in a significantly different project plan.

Step Three: Break It Down

People often underestimate how much time and how many resources are required to cross the goal line. This is one reason there never seems to be enough time or money to get the job done right. When you break the process down task by task, in the right order, a number of critical benefits are gained. So start to write down each and every task, no matter how small, required to accomplish the goal. Since Americans are not typically a planning obsessive culture, it is common for planning to be a challenge for us. It is very important to try to put the right task in the right order. This takes practice. A tremendous amount of waste is produced when tasks are out of order and individuals have to go back and fix actions that were not timed properly. A very common complaint is that senior management often requests information with almost no lead time. This is particularly frustrating when it is clear these executives could easily have submitted the request days, if not weeks, earlier. This is all a function of poor planning and the costs to an organization are significant. Good project planning allows your staff to do its job in a reasonable manner without the costly stress and frustration of constant last-minute demands and interruptions.

Step Four: Calendar It

Creating a list of tasks (in order) is half the battle. The second half, and where all of the value is realized, is taking those individual tasks and putting them in your calendar. Failing to do this will create virtually no work flow efficiencies. As with everything else in life, the more your practice this process the faster you will become.

Taking all of these responsibilities out of the brain ' onto the paper ' and then calendaring them frees the mind to do what it does best. Your clients are paying you to analyze, communicate and execute a legal strategy on their behalf. With these myriad cerebral distractions out of the way (i.e., out of your prefrontal cortex), you can do a much better job producing legal work product, increasing clients' satisfaction and creating more future work.

Paul Silverman is the President of Integra Workshops, a firm that offers a variety of efficiency workshops to help professionals. He can be reached at [email protected].