Relativity Fest
Relativity Fest launched this morning and I had a great time partnering with Relativity and Dan Young, Head of Legal Operations, Boston Scientific, to host an invite-only workshop for legal operations professionals. The workshop leveraged Ops in a Box, Legal Edition to arm attendees the essential tool kit designed to help with strategic planning, fine-tune existing tools and processes and refine operations.
Confirmed workshop participants received the Ops in a Box, Legal Edition (OBL) kit - compliments of Relativity - and access to the digital kit. OBL is designed to be grab and go so you can open a document, and begin editing right away to have a draft deliverable in hand quickly.
In the workshop we focused on the strategic plan. A few key take-aways for me from the breakout sessions:
1. Legal Ops professionals serve as both connectors and translators. Ops professionals know legal lingo and can translate terminology to plain language and core concepts for business partners and end clients and the reverse. They can surface solutions business partners are using an apply them to legal process issues.
2. Start small. You do not need to boil the ocean with a 5 year plan on day 1. Start with a 30/60/90 day plan. Give yourself runway to build up to a full year plan. This allows you to "Do" while developing a plan.
Corollary to 2: Strive not to have too many open projects at once. This can be difficult when your core stakeholders group are lawyers. Lawyers tend to score high on reactivity and low on planning, while Ops professionals tend to score high on planning. If you don't have a former Navy pilot for a boss to instill discipline on this front, recalibrate as needed, putting more resources into projects with greater traction. Be clear in communicating each project's timeline and the schedule impact when a new project takes precedence.
3. Change management begins with education and awareness. People don't know what they don't know. You need to share what you learn with stakeholders to bring them forward on your joint journey.
Was great to see both familiar and new faces. As always, even with all the preparation in advance, I learned new things from the conversation, which reminds me about the importance of participating in the legal ops ecosystem via professional associations. I'm always re-energized by interaction with my legal ops peers!