Process Makes Perfect – Part 2 – Internal - Part b

Last article, I started the process (pun intended) of focusing on internal processes. I wrote about Fighting the urge to just do it yourself and to start identifying your firm’s key business profiles. This month I’ll take us through the last two parts of this deep dive.

Demystify the Process > Forget the Tool > Start

Most of us will spend an amazing amount time thinking about something we should do versus taking action on it. When I wrote my first book last year, I thought about it for months and months without ever writing the first chapter. Once I started writing I kicked myself as much since it was actually LESS draining to actually write and take action that to think about it. My concept of “Demystify the Process,” which I say here to my staff (including myself) all the time, is a reminder that thinking about something does NOTHING. You need to simply break it down, stop thinking about it and just take action.

Ok, you’re ready to start and are now sold on this idea and realize you need to start creating some processes. If you’re anything like I was at this point several years ago, you may be tempted to wait starting until you’ve found the PERFECT tool to help you track and create this process. I literally spent a couple months googling and searching for the Holy Grail of tools to help me create processes. I finally got myself unstuck, said screw it and opened a blank Word document and started writing the steps, one by one. My team, started doing this and I made it a requirement to create two processes a week, big or small. Compound that and we now have hundreds of processes, which ARE helpful and we use all the time. Don’t get stuck on finding the right tool, focus on starting, you can always find a better tool later. To save you some time, now we are several years into this process creation, our two main tools we use are: Confluence by Attlassian, Manifest.ly and Affinity Live. Bottom line, however, is to not delay in getting started in creating processes because you are waiting to find the best tool. 

Finally - START. Get your self unstuck and take some kind of action. Start small, and work your way up. The more you do this, the more natural it will become. Get your team bought into this and your productivity will soar. 

Test & Refine

The last part of all this is to test & refine your process. Although it may make sense in your head, the ultimate test is to give it to someone else and ask them to do it. This is where you will find out where the holes are. To the chagrin of my wife, we lost our best-ever nanny a couple months ago as she graduated and moved away. The new gal, put our kids to bed after lunchtime the first time just a few days ago. My wife, being very detailed driven, provided her with a one page summary of everything that she needed to do. One of those things was to bring our 2-year old son to bed at 1pm and read him 3-4 books. Well she did this, however, he didn’t go to bed till 2pm; she read him every page of a 60 page book. So instead of reading to him for 10 minutes, she read to him for an hour. It’s not her fault, she didn’t know, she followed my wife’s instructions to a T. My wife has since clarified this step in the process :)

Having someone else execute your process will find the kinks in it and you will then further clarify it, until you can fully hand it off. For detailed processes, I prefer to be looking over their shoulder their first time through to do this in person, so I can tighten up my process. We provide all our the firms we support with a $1,500 cloud-managed security appliance, since most smaller firms tend to be using a $100 Best Buy router, which is not meant for enterprise and does not provide the level of security needed. I used to spend 2 hours setting this up every time we have a new client since I was the only one that knew how to do it, and it was a tedious, detailed process. I forced myself to spend a little more time to create a process and after going over once and tightening it up, my entry level tech can now set these up, 100% on his own and we have had zero issues over the past few months as we have brought on multiple clients. This has freed me well over 10 hours in the past 6 weeks alone, just on this one process.

Becoming a process-driven law firm will increase your profitability in a very significant way. In the past, we could handle about 50 desktops per technician. Thanks to everything we have done in this arena, we can now handle 75 and I have no doubt we can get to 100 per technician. This ends up adding a tremendous amount to our bottom line and profitability, not to mention having a much better atmosphere with very little reactive, cleanup work. Thanks for bearing with me through all process hoopla. If this was helpful and you’ve bought into all this, I challenge you to grab a pen and write down one process you will create in the next week that you have been putting off, but wanting to do for a long time. Block off a time in your calendar to do it and simply do it.

Tom Lambotte is CEO of GlobalMacIT, we provide complete end-to end legal technology consulting to Mac-Based law firms nationwide. Our service enables our clients to leverage technology converting it into a profit-generator for their firm. We provide complete certainty that all the best-in-class IT policies and security measures are in place, so they can focus on growing the firm. Tom’s methods are based on close to a decade of research, testing and real-world refinement of Best Practices, working directly with Mac-based law firms and firms switching from PC to Mac, across the country and around the world.

Go to Tom is the author of Hassle Free Mac IT Support for Law Firms and Legal Boost: Big Profits Through an IT Transformation. He is a highly sought after speaker at national events such as the ABA Techshow and MacTrack Legal. To receive more profit-boosting tips and ideas to boost your usage of technology, go to www.globalmacit.com/boost, complete the form and we will mail you a complimentary copy of Legal Boost - Big Profits Through an IT Transformation.