KM – CROSS-FUNCTIONAL PROCESS

I always like to mention the pragmatic approach quoted by Patrick DiDomenico in his book KM for Layers: “Knowledge Management is related to deliver the correct information to the right professional in the shortest period of time.”

Likewise, I always restate and reinforce the pragmatic objectives of that matter , which are the productivity and efficiency increase in all productive processes, with the consequent increase in competitiveness and profitability (in addition to the traditional collection, maintenance and sharing  of the entrepreneurial knowledge).

In the law business, the so-called “expertise” (which is nothing else, but knowledge) clearly defines the capacity of charging fees and also the degree of the acknowledgment by partners and the market, enabling some specialized attorneys to charge GBP 1.500,00 per hour in London and R$ 9.000,00 per hour here in Brazil!

Well, so how to achieve higher degrees of knowledge, productivity and profitability, making all this to become accessible?  In theory, it may be simple, that is, all we need to do is to implement the cycle below:

In practice, as usual, it is not as simple as this, because, in order to obtain this cycle, two fundamental things are necessary: – (i). the company (or the firm) needs to have or to implement the so-called “learning organization” culture, where all the members have in mind that they are under constant learning and that each new knowledge, process or good idea that is inserted, adds a competitive advantage to the company and – (ii) practically all the sectors (or departments) of the company need to participate in order to make it effective.

The cross-functional team that will lead and coordinate the entire implementation and maintenance process of the Knowledge Management in the company (or in the office) “philosophy” will be made up by:

1 – The fundamental piece for the KM implementation process is “sponsoring” and the active participation of the company’s senior management (referred to as C-Suite) in the process. As any change or innovation involves the changing of behavior and habits of the people, it is this piece that will provide the motivation and incentive so that the organization will embrace the process.

You should have noticed that I used the word “process” and not “project” twice and that is so because KM is not a project that has a beginning, a middle and an end, but indeed a lasting process to be incorporated to the organization, improving itself as time goes by, but never coming to an end.

2 – And, as we are discussing about motivation and engagement, the participation of the People’s Management sector is highly important (each company has its own name) which, as it knows the company very well, it will be the multiplier and the facilitator of this behavioral change.

3 – Obviously, the participation of the company’s productive sector will be necessary (in Law Firms, the attorneys of each oneof the engaged areas) so that they can effectively define which data, information and knowledge must be catalogued, indexed and made available, which processes, practices and procedures must be addressed and which professionals and tacit knowledge must be explained.

4 – The sectors that coordinate and keep registries, libraries, files, norms, manuals and the profiles of each professional are also an important partof this team, as they will be the ones that will have the task of updating and keeping integrity of all those pieces of information.

5 – Last, but not least, the members of the IT team will have the hard task of creating and implementing operational tools so that all this can be done. It is important to highlight the importance of this sub-team,  which will be practically responsible for the success or failure  of the entire effort, as the functioning of all the necessary tools for the process, and also involving the disclosure and research actions of the Board, as well as training forms and infrastructure,  information capturing and digitalizing systems (documents, photos, videos, audios, etc.), organization, cataloging and indexation systems of the entire process and, mainly,  research intelligent systems and the use of the stored knowledge.

In my humble opinion, I would dare to predict that in the near future, those cross- functional teams will become one of the main departments of companies, being in charge of, in addition to the repertoire, being the supplier of all vital information to all other departments, such as the operations, marketing, finance and strategy.

The support by an outsourced consultancy firm that is experienced and exempt from internal interactions and relationship may help a lot on the guidance and the training of the leaders and the team to implement this philosophy in the company.

José Paulo Graciotti, is consultant and founding Partner of GRACIOTTI ASSESSORIA EMPRESARIAL, engeneer by Escola Politécnica Universidade de São Paulo, with Financial MBA at FGV and specialized in Knowledge Mnagement by FGV. ILTA Member since 1998 (International Legal Technology Association) and ALA (Association of Legal Administrators), with more than 27 years managing Law Firms in Brazil – www.graciotti.com.br

The next Successful Law Firm (a very near future!)

In this discussion, I want to provoke a reflection about the speeding up of changes in all fields of the routine life and disruptions in our professional life caused by the technological evolution that the world has been experiencing, whose effects we are already feeling and will be stronger in a near future. The impact on people and professionals forces a deep and radical adaptation to this new reality and all people and companies are inserted in this context (again the Law Offices are not an exception)!

Our current economy is already forcing all leaders or managers to fully rethink their businesses in order to adapt themselves to a condition that will last for some years! The most common and immediate adaptations go through space optimization, search for productive efficiency and maximization of the sales efforts, cost and staff decrease (not obligatorily in this order and it is neither the topic of this discussion now).

Let us now practice some projections based on the strong trends that already exist in our current reality, keeping the focus on Law Offices:

Spherical communication.

The term very well expresses our current reality four communication with the world in search for information. The current existing tools on the Internet enable us to connect with everything and with everyone in a fraction of a second (and simultaneously) and we are already used to doing it. And what is most incredible is that we can no longer imagine us living without them! This trend will force the services providers to create new forms of exposure and, mainly, new forms of sales and rendering of services.

Detachment from the facilities and from the external signs of power.

More and more the aesthetics, the organization, the content (with the breakdown of your accomplishments) and the user friendly browsing on a company’s site is becoming more important for us in this company than the physical address or the look of its facilities.

This is slowly making us abandon the habit of observation and subliminal evaluation that we make about the financial healthand the “muscles” when observing the facilities of a supplier that we are about to contract.

This trend causes strong impact, particularly to the Offices which are still too much stuck to the demonstration of their vigor based on the magnificence of their facilities. It is important to remember that the contracting companies want good law services and not luxury in the facilities!

The Work Flexibility.

This is nothing new that for several fields of activity, but it is a significant paradigm shift in the legal world that due to the remarks the previous item; the concern (almost unwholesome) with information secrecy; the need for the referring to millions of physical documents (books, procedural files, files, etc.); and lastly, the need for personal contact with their clients still fighting to adopt. The following technological trends demystify this pseudo imposition of a fixed work in one single space.

Technical improvements in the communications

It is undeniable that the speed (theone measured in Mb/sec) is growing in an astounding way and with increasing competitive costs.

The internet2 with theoretical speed of 10Gbps (this means that a DVD with a 4,7Gb capacity may be transferred in 3.5 seconds!); the “IPv6” address protocol will allow 79 octillion times the current capacity of IPv4 protocol addressing; and, lastly, the 5G technology estimated to land in Brazil in 2018, has 10 times the speed of the 4G, only to mention a few examples. It is important to remember that those technologies already exist and it is not futurology or scientific fiction.

These changes will provide several things that today, although they already exist, still have insufficient performance. As an example, the instantaneous access to gigantic databases and the performance of video conference with telepresence by means of the holography (with the feeling of the real “face to face” presence”).

Cloud system and totally digital documentation

This trend that is already ongoing enables the companies to distance from the physical needs (backups, redundancies, special air conditioning, surveillance, security), from specialized staff (increasingly difficult and costly) and from f big volumes of investments in order to have a robust and current platform for their systems. Currently, the traditional model, in several cases the IT physical structure of the company is, by itself,an anchor that hinders or prevents the address change.

With this physical detachment, the offices will be able to concentrate more in their “core business” and to have the support of professionals who are more specialized in the maintenance of their equipment, in the development of their systems and in the physical and digital security of their information. The may also occupy smaller spaces, with no need for spaces (internal or external) for the physical filing of tons of paper.

Specifically referring to the security item, the structure offered by the current data centers and services providers in the cloud is infinitely bigger than the false security that exists in the rooms, office drawers and their internal servers.

BI, Knowledge Management, Big Data and productivity.

The effective extraction of relevant information for the business in the big databases (internal and external) with intelligent search systems (searchengines) and, ultimately, artificial intelligence systems, robotization and Cognitive Intelligence (Watson – IBM) will represent, in the near future, the difference between being or not being in the market!

The knowledge management with the effective and pragmatic use of its information (documental, registry and financial) enables a brutal increase in productivity, in operational and strategic management and it is the key to the present-future, mainly for companies that sell intellectual services.

By placing all those considerations in the universe of the companies that render law services (“aka” Law Offices) we can have an idea of the “gap” that still separates them from the trends (which, again, I restate, are real and not science fiction). In addition to adapting themselves to the impositions mentioned above, they will have to radically be transformedin order to survive in this brave new world (stealing the title from Aldous Huxley’s book)!

I envision for the future (again, not very distant): “offices fully integrated to the digital life (with state-of-the- art and 100% interactive systems with their clients); smaller than the current “big-law” ones; with fewer clients and better support; with Spartan physical structures (less noble locations than the current ones) and telepresence rooms; with areas for shared use; and much more efficient than the current ones”!

The support by an outsourced and experienced consultancy firm which is also exempt from internal political interactions may indeed help in the working out of this challenge as well as in the definition  of the management model and the future strategy.

José Paulo Graciotti, is consultant and founding Partner of GRACIOTTI ASSESSORIA EMPRESARIAL, engeneer by Escola Politécnica Universidade de São Paulo, with Financial MBA at FGV and specialized in Knowledge Mnagement by FGV. ILTA Member since 1998 (International Legal Technology Association) and ALA (Association of Legal Administrators), with more than 27 years managing Law Firms in Brazil – www.graciotti.com.br.