April 21, 2026 β’ 35 mins
Law firm process improvement dies when we rush it. I learned that the hard way after more than a decade of running Sterling Lawyers.
Kelley Shaw reveals the 4-bucket system we use to prioritize projects, manage backlogs, and actually finish what we start at our family law firm.
This is for the firm owners who have tons of great ideas and zero finished projects. The fix comes down to better prioritization, backlog discipline, and real change management. Kelley runs this playbook at Sterling.
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π CHAPTERS
0:00 - Law Firm Process Improvement Starts With One Question
2:07 - Why Pain Points Matter More Than Solutions
10:56 - The 4-Bucket Project Prioritization Framework
20:51 - How We Rolled Out a Client Portal Across Four Quarters
26:19 - Change Management and Getting Real Team Buy-In
33:58 - Accountability Across a Growing Family Law Firm
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
many ofthese projects start with a ticket, Okay,
(00:03):
let's get those people in the room.
Let's get that teamor those leaders in a room.
And let's talk through all of these issuesand figure out,
okay, if if the way it's workingtoday is not what you want.
How should it work and document that out.
εε well, hello andwelcome to the Sterling Family Law Show.
I'm Jeff Hughes, I'm your co-hostalong with Tyler Dolph present as well,
(00:24):
our co-host.
And thisthis is an important and fun podcast
for me to do today,because I have one of the most impactful
teammates in Sterling Lawyerswith us today as a guest, Kelly
Shaw, to talk about project managementwithin a family law context.
Okay, so I know all of you familylawyers out there, you have projects going
(00:45):
on, and some of you have projectsthat involve more than two people.
And if that's the case,this is one of those podcasts
that you're going to want to forwardto other teammates,
because we're going to go throughsome of the best practices that Kelly
has discovered in putting projectstogether and completing them.
That's the key pointand completing the project.
So project management is where the realprogress is made to grow family law firms.
(01:08):
So there are million ideas out there.
I know because I generate them.
Some of them are good,but Kelly takes the ones that are special
in terms of the men to actual productiondollars, client satisfaction, etc..
So Kelly Shaw, welcome to today's podcast.
Thank you soYes. Well thank you.
(01:30):
And now, Kelly,one more thing about Kelly.
Kelly started, I think Kelly, you'rethe third, maybe the second or third
longest serving teammate in Sterling.
Right okay.
She started on the intake teamand we have watched her finish her degree,
get her MBA and move upand pretty much cover
every position within our firm,with the exception of maybe a lawyer.
(01:53):
Is that fair? That sounds pretty accurate.
Okay.
Well,we asked you to come on the show today
and talk about how you manage projectswithin the family law context
and you being the extremelyprepared person that you are.
I know that you've put some advancedthought into this.
And so jumping intomaybe let's start with where you feel
(02:13):
like the best practices are.
Maybe your flight. Let's start.
Let's start with the philosophyyou have toward managing projects
within a family law context.
Sure. So, you know,just think in high level here,
when you're thinking about projects andwhat you have coming down the pipeline.
(02:35):
The one thing it's the one thingwe really focus on from the beginning
of that project management processis to ensure that we really understand
what pain point are we trying to solve.
But, you know,if that's a user pain point, is that
is this a client facing issue?
Like what are we trying to accomplishwith this particular project
and making sure we have that really welldocumented?
(02:57):
Once you understand that pain point,you need to ensure you've got a good
holistic understanding of it,because a pain point to one
team is going to look differentto another team, right?
So if it's a workflow, if you goand if you have a request to enhance
a workflow, you need to ensure you'redoing the research to understand the down
(03:19):
the downward impactsof that change for other teams
that may or may not be impacted.
Right.
So just making sureyou're looking at the whole process
and not looking at it from oneindividual perspective.
Yeah, Kelly,I know when I look at projects
that you and your team are performingon, I always look at the
(03:40):
what is the outcomeI want to see that look like.
And so you're looking at it, it feels likefrom a little deeper perspective,
like what is the ultimate painthat we are trying to absolve
or to clean up or heal, so to speak.
Right, Yes.
okay.
It's really hard to craft a solutionif you don't fully understand the issue.
think that's such a powerful point, Kelly.
(04:01):
And I think every law firm ownerneeds a Kelly.
Every visionary, every CEO needs a Kelly.
Because we get stuckin having a million ideas, right?
And without someone to vet those with us,we can get very busy very quickly
running down the wrong path.
And so I think one superpower you haveis, is reigning those ideas
(04:23):
in by asking questions like, well,what are we trying to solve here?
What are we actually trying to get done?
Absolutely. Yeah.
That's thatthat Guardian voice coming out,
irks you.
Innovative voices sometimes.
I know it's that's true.
Kelly, youyou fill a really important role in a firm
because I know I've come to you.
It's a hey, Kelly, let's do this.
This sounds like great.
(04:45):
We can conquer the worldif we just did. Just did this idea.
And you are asking me a coupleof questions, and I go away annoyed
knowing that while you're right,it wasn't the right timing.
Sometimes a good idea is wrong timing,and you have a way to kind of
cut through all that noise.
So anyone running projects needs that.
So how do you do that?
Like what?
What are some of thewhat are some of the character attributes?
(05:07):
You have to have to havethat kind of fortitude to tell,
like your boss knowor how do you navigate that so well?
There's certainly a part of itthat is innate
and a part of it that is learned.
Obviously, as you mentioned before.
I've, I've,I've sat in a lot of different seats
throughout the firm, which I think hasled me to be a particularly
(05:29):
well skilled for this becauseI really understand a lot about like,
what are what are a lot ofour different teams doing from day to day.
So I know how to ask.
I know just intuitively like, okay,if this is what you want to do,
for example, you know, Hughes, you liketo come up with lots of new service ideas.
Okay, well how is intake?
(05:50):
What is the pitch for intake sound like?
How do we make it so that intakedoesn't have to remember
how to input that into Salesforce.
So I'm just I'm I'm a lot of timeswhat I'm doing is starting from
that very first client interactionin my brain and thinking
through, at what point isthat going to touch that next team,
and what are the systematicthings that are impacted by that?
(06:13):
Yeah. Yeah.
That's so easy for me to kind of look overall of those teammates
who have to put their input onthat to go from my idea
or someone else's idea to somethingthat's actually serving
the client that works for them,that we can do at scale.
So. Okay.
And you also seem to have a process fortaking an idea and say, you know,
(06:38):
now's not the right time.
Let's kind of parking lot that towhen I know we're going to have better
timing around thata year and a half from now
when we launch our app, for example,or whatever the case is, how do you
how do you do that and what are yourwhat are your learnings there?
A lot of that comes inwith managing our backlog.
So Nathan and ISONathan is my counterpart.
(06:59):
He's more systems focused.
Like he knows I'mnot obviously not a developer. Right.
So Nathan,is that more technical counterpart
to me where I sit more onthe user experience side.
But what you're describing,like how do we prioritize the timing?
Things like that comes from managingthat backlog of project.
So we're looking at that list twicea week.
(07:20):
And Nathan and I are like in lockstep.
What is this?
What are these pain pointsassociated with each of these projects?
And we're also documentingdependencies there.
So for example document generation right.
We are looking atand have on our backlog what
what opportunities are out therefor document generation.
(07:42):
We have we're using a platformcalled stocks right now.
We want to reevaluate that.
Or is there another platform out there.
Well, I'm keeping track of okay,when does our stocks contract expire?
I'm also keeping track of okay.
What other types of document platformsare we using.
So we're lookingand we're having those conversations.
I mean, a lot of it comes downto just being having a lot
(08:03):
of really good conversationsand having well thought out agendas.
But that backlog is,you know, to your point,
where we're doing a lot of that.
Okay.
What conversationsare we having about DAC Jen?
Where is that project?
Are we ready for that yet?
No, because this contract isn'tthis contract isn't up for a few years.
We're not going to startlooking at another product for that
until we get closer.
(08:24):
Things like that.
But that that product backlog combingis where a lot of that kind
of prioritization happens.
And Kelly, for our listeners,what project management
system are you using todayand do you like using Monday.
And has that been effective for you?
I like it because it's easyfor our systems team to kind of interact
(08:44):
with and stay organized.
Yeah.
I mean, it works pretty well.
It's pretty easy to manipulateand pretty easy
to kind of create your own dashboards.
So yeah, it works pretty fairly well.
Kelly, we recently did an episodewith Jeff Kerlin
on planning, and we talked throughthe best practices for planning.
(09:05):
And I know you're a partof our executive leadership team.
You sit on those planningand you in a large part, are touching
all of the projects that are being workedon throughout a given year.
And so you've developedsome well-honed pointers on
how do you prioritize those projectsand those all those ideas
that sit in your backlog or thatcome out of the blue, how do you do that?
(09:29):
Yeah, I love prepping for planning that.
Those aresome of my favorite conversations to have.
So part of that processleading up to those planning sessions
that we have, I meet with each of the teamleaders, right.
So I have a conversation with Maryfrom a sales perspective.
I'm meeting with the MPs about legal teamprojects, and I go through their backlog
(09:50):
because my backlog is organizedby stakeholders. Right.
So I can pull up a list and say,here are all of the projects
that impact the legal team and which likewhere are the pain points for your team?
I generally have a fairly good ideaof what those pain points are and what
which of these projects on this backlogare going to impact that pain point.
So I have that conversationbefore planning.
(10:10):
Like here's what we've got on your listbased off of what I know about your team.
Here's my recommendation.
Does that sound in linewith what you think we should advocate
for at planning for a rock?
Usually we're usually becauseI actually have those project meetings
with those team leaders, like the MPsI meet with once a month.
Mary, I meet with weekly,and I utilize those project meetings
(10:31):
for a couple of different things, butlooking at that backlog as one of them.
So by the time we get to planning,there isn't much of a surprise
like we like we're in lockstepon what is probably going
to get brought up at planning,but I still use that meeting
to confirmand make sure I'm not missing anything.
Okay.
And what are your your,your best practices around
(10:53):
prioritizing those projects that youthat you're looking at are considering?
That everyoneyou meet with believes that their idea
is the best ideafor the business, and that they should get
it pushed through?
How do you how do you help themunderstand the bigger picture?
So helping helping teammatesbetter understand that bigger picture.
(11:14):
I mean, sometimesit's a lot of making sure they understand
how their request might impactother teams.
That is just, you know,because not everybody can be thinking
about all of the processes all at once.
Right. So there's that.
But the other piece, likehow do you prioritize really kind of falls
into four main buckets.
One is and these are very highlevel labels but business impact.
(11:39):
So what kind of impact is thischange or this tool going to have.
Is this a client facing impact.
Is this going to be limited to intake.
Is this intake and legal.
Is this going to impact reporting.
So kind of evaluating thatlike how how big of a change
or how big of a project is this.
The next kind of bucket is feasibilityand resources.
(12:02):
So evaluatingdo we have the people in house to do this
or do we need to go out and find someone.
So there's kind of that costbenefit analysis there that happens.
Is this going to require the assistanceof our offshore
development team enabler solutions?
They are a really good partner for us.
We work with them a lot.
(12:24):
But how big of a project is this?
What is the cost generally associatedwith this kind of development?
So that's number two.
Number three is urgency and dependency.
So evaluatingare there regulatory things coming down
the pipeline that we need to consider.
Like is there a recent decisionthat is making this project
the forefront of our mind.
(12:45):
Are there other projects that need toget completed before we can jump on this?
So kind of looking at that holistic,that holistic
view of what else is kind ofis in the hopper, as it were.
And then buy in is kind of that last one.
So who is making this request?
Are the users that are going to beimpacted by this product or this change?
(13:07):
Do they understand the benefit?
Is there a risk that this will havean adverse effect on the stakeholders?
Right.
Because there's there'salways that element as well.
If this doesn't go well, what's theif this project doesn't
roll out or this project flops, right.
Luckily, I don't thinkwe've really had an example of that.
But what's our rollback processlike if we don't do this right?
(13:30):
Is there an impact to the client?
Is there an impact to conversion.
Is there an impact to cash flow. Right.
So making sure that the stakeholderswho are having those
who have to prioritizeand have these conversations
really understandthose downstream impacts.
So those are kindof the for the four buckets.
It's reallyhelpful, I think, for our listeners,
if we can kind of put this into a pictureor to explain how you actually manage
(13:54):
some of these projects.
So I believe you've been workingon our client app project
for most of this year, right?
Okay.
So that project came to youat the planning for last year, right?
Am I getting this right infor 24 for 25 year?
So that has actually been on my backlogfor a couple of Perfect.
(14:15):
Okay. Walk us through Kelly.
Like this project I know that we've talkedwe've talked about this
going back to like,I don't know, 2019 probably.
So it took a while for usto get to the point
where we could actually execute on this.
So that's a great illustration to helpget a picture in your mind
for our listenerson how they can see a project
(14:37):
from start to finish or walk usthrough the history of that particular
project, applying even these filtersthat you just gave on prioritization.
Sure. Yeah.
So I mean really the the impetusfor the client portal came from like this.
This was a strategic advantagethat we as a business, as a leadership
team knew we wanted to have at some point.
(14:58):
We knew that that would improveclient stickiness.
We knew that having an having a wayfor clients to access their documents,
to collaborate with their legal team,with something we wanted to prioritize.
So This could be an app on their phone.
You're calling on a client portal,but it's an app like you download.
Okay, perfect. Okay.
So we're talking about the same Yes,still talking about the same thing.
(15:18):
And the the only reason portal kind ofcame in is because one of the platforms
that was originally recommended for thiswas more of a portal than an app.
So that's the only reason I'm using that.
But so we had originally.
So and this kind of goes backwhen we were working with Keith.
So Keith actually kind ofdid some of the initial research
utilizing Salesforce communities.
(15:41):
They have this portal function.
And we werewe have been cataloging over the years.
What are the benefits?
What would this have to look liketo be really beneficial to clients?
So we had start we oftentimes have livingwhat we call research documents.
What what are we trying to solve for here.
(16:02):
Well,some of the things we're trying to solve
for with the client portal iswe want to have
we want them to be able to have one placeto go to access all the documents
that their attorneyshave shared with them right now.
And I'm sure anybody listening tothis can sympathize with the
the issue of having to just email thingsback and forth.
Right. Or you're using a secure messaging.
Right.
So client feedback overthe years has been
(16:25):
it would be beneficialif I just had one place to look.
I know where to go to find it every time.
The other piece of it is sharingsensitive information,
social security numbers,bank statements, things like that.
Being ableto give the client a link that says here
you can put all of that stuff in thissecure folder specifically for you.
(16:47):
So we're kind ofgoing back to your question,
which was like, how did this all develop?
We were gathering these requirementskind of over the years.
And then when it felt likeit was a good time to consider, okay.
When do weit is now a good time to do this.
(17:07):
Right.
We're talking about expanding.
We're talking about we're in a good place.
Revenue and cash flow wiselike now seems like a good strategic time
to have this conversation about takingthis client experience to the next level.
So that conversation that we really kindof put the research into like 110%
like full year, right? I did interviewswith clients, past clients and said,
(17:28):
this is what we want to do.
What are the things in your opinion?
Does this absolutely have to have?
So I had a lot of good conversationsthere. That was a lot of fun.
And we put together those requirementslike, here's our bare minimum
that we have to have.
Here'sthe list of these would be nice to haves.
Right.
And then we took thatand we worked with Nathan
(17:51):
and we created a vendor matrix of,you know, how do each of these vendors
that we're going to interview,how do they score on this.
And then we that's how we chose.
We chosewe ended up moving forward with Hona.
And we're now in the processof we're doing a phased approach
to roll this out because we wantto make sure as we're going through it,
once we start having aspectsthat clients can test out, I want to start
(18:14):
pulling in a couple of clients hereand there to say, hey,
how does this work for you?
What do we need to tweak?
Because the last thing I want to dois turn it on
and have all of our clients have,you know, an experience
all at once and not have thatkind of like quality control over it.
So we're really doing a very intentional,slow roll,
phased approach to the client portal.
(18:36):
Does that answer Yeah.
That helps put some colorbehind the timeline to get there.
Because you could have done all thisin two years or three months.
So how long did it taketo get to this point where you're at now?
Not taking into consideration like thatthe research Keith had done
(18:57):
like years ago, I would sayI mean, it's probably it's October now.
I mean, it'sbetween like the vendor analysis,
like we took one quarter to firm upwhat we absolutely wanted
to have for the clientsand do the vendor analysis.
Like we justthat's all we did for that whole quarter.
When was the last time your team calledto book a lead who didn't book?
(19:20):
If you can't answer that,neither can your intake team.
And that means every lead.
Who said I need to think aboutit is sitting in your CRM right now
without an owner, without a follow update, and no next step?
That lead is not dead.
That's revenue that you will not getthat you forgot about.
At Sterling Lawyers, 75% of our revenuecomes after that first conversation, 75%
(19:45):
meaning even if you just do this poorly,you will change your firm over night.
We track this across thousands of cases,and we found the money in the follow up.
We're teaching the exact follow up systembehind that number in a free training.
How do we prepare for every call?
What do our agents actually say?
(20:06):
And what is the cadence that runs behindevery lead until they book?
Please see the link belowso that you can sign up today.
So that would be like Q1 of this yearin 2025, just that in Q2,
you don't have to be exact on this,but Q2, what did it look like?
Would you do in Q2?
Q2, we started to do research on what.
(20:31):
So in in the portalthat we're using the platform,
they have athey have like a phase display.
So we started researchwith Kim and Rebecca.
What do we want our clients to see.
How is that going to look differentfor a divorce versus
a paternity case versus a child supportwe identified?
(20:52):
Okay, what cases are we going to do first?
Because I trying to do all of the casesall at once was going to be just
way too much.
So we chose three case types are the casetypes that we handle the most of right.
Divorce paternity custody placement.
And we started there.
We identified what should the client seewhen they log into their client portal.
(21:12):
How what kind of information dowe want them to have access to.
Right. Are we going to have an FAQ.
Are we going to have likephase description.
So that'swe spent most of Q2 really honing that in
for these first three case types.
And then it washow do we trigger that for the clients.
So what is going to bewhat is going to be the trigger
(21:34):
for the client to tell them okay,your case has now been filed and now
you have your first court date coming up.
We also had to think through what happensif it's limited scope versus full rep.
So the really nitty gritty.
Boring detailsthat make it all the difference here.
(21:57):
Yeah.
So in Q3, rather, what was the priorityin Q3 on that project?
So Q3 the priority waswe had to do some additional development
to give our clients accessto their box folder.
So boxes are document managementstorage platform that we use.
It's integrated into Salesforce.
We needed to do a little bit ofwe needed to do some creativity
(22:18):
to get our clients access to that.
So we had to reach outand we actually needed to pull
in some external resourcesto help us with that a little bit.
So we were determininghow do we get our clients access
to their documents, how are we goingto reformat or intake forms?
Because in today's instance,we have several different intake forms
(22:41):
based off of case type.
We still wanted to keep that.
We still because we don't want to havewe need to get the right information
from clients without having to create10,000 different intake forms.
So we went through we ended up havingfour different intake forms that are
case based.
(23:01):
So we were working through those details.
How do we need to set up the sinkbetween Salesforce and the client portal?
Because the other thingwe need to make sure is that
we're not asking our legal teamto operate in two different platforms.
We need to make sure that these thingsare in sync together
so that so the intake formand the box folder,
and honing the triggersbetween the phases.
(23:24):
That's what we spent a lot of Q3What's the priority this quarter?
Q4. priority this quarter is we aregoing to towards the end of Q4.
We want to get some test users inand using the intake form.
I also am finalizing the phasesfor all of the other case types.
(23:45):
So prenup restrainingorders, property division, etc.
we're going towe've got those phases all figured out,
all those triggers figured out.
We had to we had to wrestlethrough the triggers for those.
And how do we account for limited scopeand coaching?
Right.
(24:05):
Because we have like the documentreview, we've got the court prep.
So answeringall of those questions as well, how do we
how do we implement those.
How do wehow do those look and feel to our clients.
But yeah, so the goal for the end of Q4is to have a couple of test clients
in the client portal,the client app, utilizing it and actively
giving us some feedback on it for divorce,paternity, and custody placement.
(24:28):
Yeah, let me just share this from thefrom the leader perspective.
I'd like I struggle with patients, right.
Like all like all many leaders do.
And I would have tried to take a projectlike this and ram it through in three
or 4 or 5 months.
At the longest,I would have been excruciating long to me.
And obviously you're laughing.
I can see you smiling here, Kelly.
You know what would have happenedhad that occurred?
(24:51):
Just to kind of recaphow you took this massive project
touching many aspects of our firmand broke it down into bite sized chunks.
So less is more on how you approach this.
Each quarterQ1, you went through the select,
you and the team went throughthe selection process, the criteria
you just focused on that.
You got that done in Q1.
Q2 came, then you started getting buy in.
(25:12):
You went to Kim and Rebecca.
Two of our paralegal leadersgot their input,
got their involvement, thattheir fingerprints all over this project.
Find out what the clients really wanton a day to day in the trenches basis.
Then you went into Q3, youyou needed outside development
to kind of get a lot of that stuff ready,prepared, put together and really get it
(25:33):
client ready as much as client rightas you can get within a quarter.
And then now we're in Q4this year, I would have expected
this to have been launched back in Q2and it would have failed.
But now we're in Q4 and you're testingyou're going through the slow,
tedious process of testing itbecause we've got 970 plus
clients active right now.
We can't roll this out to all of them,or else it'll be a massive like,
(25:56):
bang your head against the wall headache.
If we start having breakdownsamong that many clients.
So you're in test with a fewand then probably launch this Q 2 or 3
of next year fully across the full teamas you've kind of vetted this out.
Right.
So that that's afor those project managers, that's smart.
That's the wayyou get a project at the door.
(26:17):
And for those of us that are tryingto push the growth of our law firm,
please pay attention to that.
Because sometimes slow is fast.
And it's taken me 11 years in my seatto start to appreciate that.
And I get it all the way.
Kelly, I know you're going to say thatI don't got it all the way.
I got that.
But to start to understand that.
So that's really, really smartand how you how you look at that.
(26:38):
I think the beauty of that process,coming from someone
who likes to get things done very quickly,is I was sitting here thinking,
how many good or great ideas havewe had that didn't work because we tried
to push it through too fast.
Right.
There's got to be so manythat if we would have had a Kelly
(27:00):
that could have taken the time to do itcorrectly.
That's where your whole low,smooth, smooth, fast
approach really comes in.
Kelly, I've watchedyou also launched some of these projects
and that requires a lot of changemanagement on your side
on the team sign on our other leaders.
(27:20):
Can you talk to that a little biton how you take a project, whether it's
this one or another one, and beginto enact the actual change in behavior
and thought acceptance that you get.
What are some of your best practicesthere?
I think a lot of that comes from pullingthe users in sooner
rather than later, getting them involvedin those conversations from the very
(27:41):
beginning to identify that pain point.
So, I mean, many of these projectsstart with a ticket,
like an enhancement requestfor a couple of tickets, right?
Like a you geta handful of tickets from the same team
related to a dashboardor related to a task flow.
(28:01):
Okay, let's get those people in the room.
Let's get that teamor those leaders in a room.
And let's talk through all of these issuesand figure out,
okay, if if the way it's workingtoday is not what you want.
How should it work and document that out.
And that immediatelycreates, well, one, it's demonstrating
to your users, like your internal clientsthat heard them.
(28:23):
And how do wehow do we need to fix this for you
so that this doesit does the work you need it to do.
So that right off the batyou're creating that by in
for this project in the future.
That doesn't necessarilymean you're going to work on that project
or prioritize it right now,but you're laying the groundwork for,
okay, now we have this documented.
(28:44):
We know what the main pain points are.
Let this may not be the right timeto take the next step,
right of starting that functional spec,starting that proof of concept doc.
But at least we knowthat this is a pain point
that we need to prioritize in the future.
So that's part of it.
From there, you know thata lot of it is just making sure
(29:06):
you're keeping that communication openso that they know.
And this is where those project meetingscome in.
Here's where we're at with that project.
You know, if it's been prioritizedto work on currently
Im explaining, okay, we're in thewe're in the process of a functional spec.
Once that functional spec is up andin the sandbox, I'm going to pull you in.
I'm going to walk you through itso you can see this in real time.
(29:29):
What we developed for you,did this hit the mark
or does this not hit the mark? Right.
I'm going through my project planas as we're going.
I make my project plan for my researchright after we have that conversation
and I walk the the users through.
Okay, here's what we saidyou needed it to do.
Is this workinghow you wanted it to or is it not?
And we we iterate from there. Right.
(29:50):
So if we come back in that initial useracceptance testing and we miss the mark on
maybe, maybe the end solution is correct,but how we got from point A to point
B isn't doesn't work for the for thefor the user for whatever reason.
Okay, I have to I have to go backand do a little bit of a, of a
tweak here with our coding or with a flow.
(30:12):
We do that, I pull them back inand we look at it again.
So it's reallyjust a very iterative process,
making sure that the team is aware of itthe every step of the way.
After that, you know, theythey have the final testing
and like, yes, this worksthe way I want it to.
I start doing the documentation,the how to docs I coordinate
(30:32):
depending on the size of the project.
Right.
If I need to coordinate doing in-persontraining, sometimes I will do that.
Sometimes, depending on the project,the generally
the department head will do it,but if it's a more complicated project,
I'll hop inhelp or Nathan will train in and L10,
make sure they know how to accessthe demo videos or the how to docs.
(30:53):
And then the final piece is reallyafter it's launched.
What issues do we have? Right.
Making sure that we're putting in tickets,like where did we miss the mark
either in our testing or in our research?
Yeah.
So that I mean, that's I'mtalking high level,
but the change management process,I mean, we kind of build in touch points
(31:15):
throughout our software developmentlifecycle to ensure
that they know what's happeningas the project is moving forward.
So on that post launch,those postmortems that you do.
I know that watching you push throughquite a few projects over the years,
you've developed a finely honed setof tools, your best practices.
(31:36):
I think this is where the goldand what you have to share with us today
is that, by the way, so walk us throughwhat are some of your
best practices that you've picked upand you've been honed over these years
on how you push projectsthrough and a family law firm?
So I talkeda little bit about the backlog meeting.
So those are the meetingsthat I do with Nathan.
(31:57):
That's a crucial part of just makingsure nothing's falling through the cracks.
The other is the project meetings,making sure that those team members know
what's on their department's listand that they have by in on like I am
in those meetings asking, what isthe next thing your team needs developed
like give me give me the prioritized listone through ten.
(32:18):
What is it?
And the idea there is when we finishwhatever project we have, right
when we come to the the next planning,or sometimes I'll move,
sometimes I'll move smallerprojects up in a quarter, depending
on, you know,if I have available and resources.
Right.
So I knowin that from that prioritized list,
this is the next thing they need from us.
(32:39):
Let's move it up.
Let's look at that research.
Let's start that functional specwherever we left off on that project
or wherever we're at with it.
So having that, having that backlog,having those project meetings
where those team leaders get to givethat input is super important
and has been a game changer.
The other thing I will say as a bestpractice is just having these standing
(33:00):
meetings that I know, like, particularlywith some of our turns, Katie,
Holly like their calendar,their poor calendars.
So I just I haveI have a recurring meeting with Mary,
with Katie, with Holly,even Kim and Rebecca.
And if I don't have anything that weekfor them, I let them know.
And I just take it off their calendarfor that week.
(33:20):
But I'm putting on those calendarsfor that week.
Sometimes I'll do itlike weeks ahead of time.
This week we need to test this dashboard.
Or this week I need you to review thehow to documentation
that I created for this tool,so that they always
kind of know if they're looking aheador if they need to determine, hey,
do I need to have this meeting with Kellythis week?
We're either prioritizing your backlog.
(33:42):
If we haven't done that and we're lookingat user acceptance testing,
but having that saved time withthose users has been invaluable.
And then the last thing I'll sayis just my calendar, like
I utilize Monday,as I mentioned for the sprint planning
and I amthat is just in lockstep with my calendar.
(34:04):
So I go and I calendar out what areall the things I need to do this week?
What research do I need to make time for?
What testing do I need to make time for?
Who is waiting for feedbackon a functional spec?
And I'm putting those detailson my calendar so that I know, like,
here are the things that need to happenand move these projects forward.
Kelly,we've got, I don't know, going
and getting close to about 100 teammates.
(34:28):
And I know many of them are onsome project that you're you're tracking.
How do you how do you hold us accountable.
How do you hold teammates accountable.
What are some of the best tactics you dothat you use to hold people accountable?
Something that has worked well for merecently is I utilize
like one of those meeting botslike fireflies
(34:50):
to just record and transcribe,and I actually keep all of those notes
because it does happenwhere someone's like, hey,
we didn't want this to work that way,or why is this being displayed that way?
And I can actually utilizebecause I'm not dealing with like client
facing things I'll actually utilizelike ChatGPT to say, hey,
here's my meeting notesfrom like this whole project.
(35:13):
Where did we talk about this?
What was the consensus on this?
And I can I can then pinpoint itback to a date and say, hey,
this is what we said in this meetingabout how we wanted this to work.
if we're changing our mindnow, this is a V2.
Kelly's keeping receipts.
I gotta remember thatnext time I I'm meeting with her.
(35:35):
on this day at this time you said Yeah.
Well, Kelly, this has been tremendous.
This is I've just really enjoyed hearingyou talk about this
because some of the stuffI didn't know, it's
a really, really smart thinkingyou've put into building our projects
and getting them done.
So thank you for coming ontoday and talking about them.
εεεε
many ofthese projects start with a ticket, Okay,
(00:03):
let's get those people in the room.
Let's get that teamor those leaders in a room.
And let's talk through all of these issuesand figure out,
okay, if if the way it's workingtoday is not what you want.
How should it work and document that out.
εε well, hello andwelcome to the Sterling Family Law Show.
I'm Jeff Hughes, I'm your co-hostalong with Tyler Dolph present as well,
(00:24):
our co-host.
And thisthis is an important and fun podcast
for me to do today,because I have one of the most impactful
teammates in Sterling Lawyerswith us today as a guest, Kelly
Shaw, to talk about project managementwithin a family law context.
Okay, so I know all of you familylawyers out there, you have projects going
(00:45):
on, and some of you have projectsthat involve more than two people.
And if that's the case,this is one of those podcasts
that you're going to want to forwardto other teammates,
because we're going to go throughsome of the best practices that Kelly
has discovered in putting projectstogether and completing them.
That's the key pointand completing the project.
So project management is where the realprogress is made to grow family law firms.
(01:08):
So there are million ideas out there.
I know because I generate them.
Some of them are good,but Kelly takes the ones that are special
in terms of the men to actual productiondollars, client satisfaction, etc..
So Kelly Shaw, welcome to today's podcast.
Thank you soYes. Well thank you.
(01:30):
And now, Kelly,one more thing about Kelly.
Kelly started, I think Kelly, you'rethe third, maybe the second or third
longest serving teammate in Sterling.
Right okay.
She started on the intake teamand we have watched her finish her degree,
get her MBA and move upand pretty much cover
every position within our firm,with the exception of maybe a lawyer.
(01:53):
Is that fair? That sounds pretty accurate.
Okay.
Well,we asked you to come on the show today
and talk about how you manage projectswithin the family law context
and you being the extremelyprepared person that you are.
I know that you've put some advancedthought into this.
And so jumping intomaybe let's start with where you feel
(02:13):
like the best practices are.
Maybe your flight. Let's start.
Let's start with the philosophyyou have toward managing projects
within a family law context.
Sure. So, you know,just think in high level here,
when you're thinking about projects andwhat you have coming down the pipeline.
(02:35):
The one thing it's the one thingwe really focus on from the beginning
of that project management processis to ensure that we really understand
what pain point are we trying to solve.
But, you know,if that's a user pain point, is that
is this a client facing issue?
Like what are we trying to accomplishwith this particular project
and making sure we have that really welldocumented?
(02:57):
Once you understand that pain point,you need to ensure you've got a good
holistic understanding of it,because a pain point to one
team is going to look differentto another team, right?
So if it's a workflow, if you goand if you have a request to enhance
a workflow, you need to ensure you'redoing the research to understand the down
(03:19):
the downward impactsof that change for other teams
that may or may not be impacted.
Right.
So just making sureyou're looking at the whole process
and not looking at it from oneindividual perspective.
Yeah, Kelly,I know when I look at projects
that you and your team are performingon, I always look at the
(03:40):
what is the outcomeI want to see that look like.
And so you're looking at it, it feels likefrom a little deeper perspective,
like what is the ultimate painthat we are trying to absolve
or to clean up or heal, so to speak.
Right, Yes.
okay.
It's really hard to craft a solutionif you don't fully understand the issue.
think that's such a powerful point, Kelly.
(04:01):
And I think every law firm ownerneeds a Kelly.
Every visionary, every CEO needs a Kelly.
Because we get stuckin having a million ideas, right?
And without someone to vet those with us,we can get very busy very quickly
running down the wrong path.
And so I think one superpower you haveis, is reigning those ideas
(04:23):
in by asking questions like, well,what are we trying to solve here?
What are we actually trying to get done?
Absolutely. Yeah.
That's thatthat Guardian voice coming out,
irks you.
Innovative voices sometimes.
I know it's that's true.
Kelly, youyou fill a really important role in a firm
because I know I've come to you.
It's a hey, Kelly, let's do this.
This sounds like great.
(04:45):
We can conquer the worldif we just did. Just did this idea.
And you are asking me a coupleof questions, and I go away annoyed
knowing that while you're right,it wasn't the right timing.
Sometimes a good idea is wrong timing,and you have a way to kind of
cut through all that noise.
So anyone running projects needs that.
So how do you do that?
Like what?
What are some of thewhat are some of the character attributes?
(05:07):
You have to have to havethat kind of fortitude to tell,
like your boss knowor how do you navigate that so well?
There's certainly a part of itthat is innate
and a part of it that is learned.
Obviously, as you mentioned before.
I've, I've,I've sat in a lot of different seats
throughout the firm, which I think hasled me to be a particularly
(05:29):
well skilled for this becauseI really understand a lot about like,
what are what are a lot ofour different teams doing from day to day.
So I know how to ask.
I know just intuitively like, okay,if this is what you want to do,
for example, you know, Hughes, you liketo come up with lots of new service ideas.
Okay, well how is intake?
(05:50):
What is the pitch for intake sound like?
How do we make it so that intakedoesn't have to remember
how to input that into Salesforce.
So I'm just I'm I'm a lot of timeswhat I'm doing is starting from
that very first client interactionin my brain and thinking
through, at what point isthat going to touch that next team,
and what are the systematicthings that are impacted by that?
(06:13):
Yeah. Yeah.
That's so easy for me to kind of look overall of those teammates
who have to put their input onthat to go from my idea
or someone else's idea to somethingthat's actually serving
the client that works for them,that we can do at scale.
So. Okay.
And you also seem to have a process fortaking an idea and say, you know,
(06:38):
now's not the right time.
Let's kind of parking lot that towhen I know we're going to have better
timing around thata year and a half from now
when we launch our app, for example,or whatever the case is, how do you
how do you do that and what are yourwhat are your learnings there?
A lot of that comes inwith managing our backlog.
So Nathan and ISONathan is my counterpart.
(06:59):
He's more systems focused.
Like he knows I'mnot obviously not a developer. Right.
So Nathan,is that more technical counterpart
to me where I sit more onthe user experience side.
But what you're describing,like how do we prioritize the timing?
Things like that comes from managingthat backlog of project.
So we're looking at that list twicea week.
(07:20):
And Nathan and I are like in lockstep.
What is this?
What are these pain pointsassociated with each of these projects?
And we're also documentingdependencies there.
So for example document generation right.
We are looking atand have on our backlog what
what opportunities are out therefor document generation.
(07:42):
We have we're using a platformcalled stocks right now.
We want to reevaluate that.
Or is there another platform out there.
Well, I'm keeping track of okay,when does our stocks contract expire?
I'm also keeping track of okay.
What other types of document platformsare we using.
So we're lookingand we're having those conversations.
I mean, a lot of it comes downto just being having a lot
(08:03):
of really good conversationsand having well thought out agendas.
But that backlog is,you know, to your point,
where we're doing a lot of that.
Okay.
What conversationsare we having about DAC Jen?
Where is that project?
Are we ready for that yet?
No, because this contract isn'tthis contract isn't up for a few years.
We're not going to startlooking at another product for that
until we get closer.
(08:24):
Things like that.
But that that product backlog combingis where a lot of that kind
of prioritization happens.
And Kelly, for our listeners,what project management
system are you using todayand do you like using Monday.
And has that been effective for you?
I like it because it's easyfor our systems team to kind of interact
(08:44):
with and stay organized.
Yeah.
I mean, it works pretty well.
It's pretty easy to manipulateand pretty easy
to kind of create your own dashboards.
So yeah, it works pretty fairly well.
Kelly, we recently did an episodewith Jeff Kerlin
on planning, and we talked throughthe best practices for planning.
(09:05):
And I know you're a partof our executive leadership team.
You sit on those planningand you in a large part, are touching
all of the projects that are being workedon throughout a given year.
And so you've developedsome well-honed pointers on
how do you prioritize those projectsand those all those ideas
that sit in your backlog or thatcome out of the blue, how do you do that?
(09:29):
Yeah, I love prepping for planning that.
Those aresome of my favorite conversations to have.
So part of that processleading up to those planning sessions
that we have, I meet with each of the teamleaders, right.
So I have a conversation with Maryfrom a sales perspective.
I'm meeting with the MPs about legal teamprojects, and I go through their backlog
(09:50):
because my backlog is organizedby stakeholders. Right.
So I can pull up a list and say,here are all of the projects
that impact the legal team and which likewhere are the pain points for your team?
I generally have a fairly good ideaof what those pain points are and what
which of these projects on this backlogare going to impact that pain point.
So I have that conversationbefore planning.
(10:10):
Like here's what we've got on your listbased off of what I know about your team.
Here's my recommendation.
Does that sound in linewith what you think we should advocate
for at planning for a rock?
Usually we're usually becauseI actually have those project meetings
with those team leaders, like the MPsI meet with once a month.
Mary, I meet with weekly,and I utilize those project meetings
(10:31):
for a couple of different things, butlooking at that backlog as one of them.
So by the time we get to planning,there isn't much of a surprise
like we like we're in lockstepon what is probably going
to get brought up at planning,but I still use that meeting
to confirmand make sure I'm not missing anything.
Okay.
And what are your your,your best practices around
(10:53):
prioritizing those projects that youthat you're looking at are considering?
That everyoneyou meet with believes that their idea
is the best ideafor the business, and that they should get
it pushed through?
How do you how do you help themunderstand the bigger picture?
So helping helping teammatesbetter understand that bigger picture.
(11:14):
I mean, sometimesit's a lot of making sure they understand
how their request might impactother teams.
That is just, you know,because not everybody can be thinking
about all of the processes all at once.
Right. So there's that.
But the other piece, likehow do you prioritize really kind of falls
into four main buckets.
One is and these are very highlevel labels but business impact.
(11:39):
So what kind of impact is thischange or this tool going to have.
Is this a client facing impact.
Is this going to be limited to intake.
Is this intake and legal.
Is this going to impact reporting.
So kind of evaluating thatlike how how big of a change
or how big of a project is this.
The next kind of bucket is feasibilityand resources.
(12:02):
So evaluatingdo we have the people in house to do this
or do we need to go out and find someone.
So there's kind of that costbenefit analysis there that happens.
Is this going to require the assistanceof our offshore
development team enabler solutions?
They are a really good partner for us.
We work with them a lot.
(12:24):
But how big of a project is this?
What is the cost generally associatedwith this kind of development?
So that's number two.
Number three is urgency and dependency.
So evaluatingare there regulatory things coming down
the pipeline that we need to consider.
Like is there a recent decisionthat is making this project
the forefront of our mind.
(12:45):
Are there other projects that need toget completed before we can jump on this?
So kind of looking at that holistic,that holistic
view of what else is kind ofis in the hopper, as it were.
And then buy in is kind of that last one.
So who is making this request?
Are the users that are going to beimpacted by this product or this change?
(13:07):
Do they understand the benefit?
Is there a risk that this will havean adverse effect on the stakeholders?
Right.
Because there's there'salways that element as well.
If this doesn't go well, what's theif this project doesn't
roll out or this project flops, right.
Luckily, I don't thinkwe've really had an example of that.
But what's our rollback processlike if we don't do this right?
(13:30):
Is there an impact to the client?
Is there an impact to conversion.
Is there an impact to cash flow. Right.
So making sure that the stakeholderswho are having those
who have to prioritizeand have these conversations
really understandthose downstream impacts.
So those are kindof the for the four buckets.
It's reallyhelpful, I think, for our listeners,
if we can kind of put this into a pictureor to explain how you actually manage
(13:54):
some of these projects.
So I believe you've been workingon our client app project
for most of this year, right?
Okay.
So that project came to youat the planning for last year, right?
Am I getting this right infor 24 for 25 year?
So that has actually been on my backlogfor a couple of Perfect.
(14:15):
Okay. Walk us through Kelly.
Like this project I know that we've talkedwe've talked about this
going back to like,I don't know, 2019 probably.
So it took a while for usto get to the point
where we could actually execute on this.
So that's a great illustration to helpget a picture in your mind
for our listenerson how they can see a project
(14:37):
from start to finish or walk usthrough the history of that particular
project, applying even these filtersthat you just gave on prioritization.
Sure. Yeah.
So I mean really the the impetusfor the client portal came from like this.
This was a strategic advantagethat we as a business, as a leadership
team knew we wanted to have at some point.
(14:58):
We knew that that would improveclient stickiness.
We knew that having an having a wayfor clients to access their documents,
to collaborate with their legal team,with something we wanted to prioritize.
So This could be an app on their phone.
You're calling on a client portal,but it's an app like you download.
Okay, perfect. Okay.
So we're talking about the same Yes,still talking about the same thing.
(15:18):
And the the only reason portal kind ofcame in is because one of the platforms
that was originally recommended for thiswas more of a portal than an app.
So that's the only reason I'm using that.
But so we had originally.
So and this kind of goes backwhen we were working with Keith.
So Keith actually kind ofdid some of the initial research
utilizing Salesforce communities.
(15:41):
They have this portal function.
And we werewe have been cataloging over the years.
What are the benefits?
What would this have to look liketo be really beneficial to clients?
So we had start we oftentimes have livingwhat we call research documents.
What what are we trying to solve for here.
(16:02):
Well,some of the things we're trying to solve
for with the client portal iswe want to have
we want them to be able to have one placeto go to access all the documents
that their attorneyshave shared with them right now.
And I'm sure anybody listening tothis can sympathize with the
the issue of having to just email thingsback and forth.
Right. Or you're using a secure messaging.
Right.
So client feedback overthe years has been
(16:25):
it would be beneficialif I just had one place to look.
I know where to go to find it every time.
The other piece of it is sharingsensitive information,
social security numbers,bank statements, things like that.
Being ableto give the client a link that says here
you can put all of that stuff in thissecure folder specifically for you.
(16:47):
So we're kind ofgoing back to your question,
which was like, how did this all develop?
We were gathering these requirementskind of over the years.
And then when it felt likeit was a good time to consider, okay.
When do weit is now a good time to do this.
(17:07):
Right.
We're talking about expanding.
We're talking about we're in a good place.
Revenue and cash flow wiselike now seems like a good strategic time
to have this conversation about takingthis client experience to the next level.
So that conversation that we really kindof put the research into like 110%
like full year, right? I did interviewswith clients, past clients and said,
(17:28):
this is what we want to do.
What are the things in your opinion?
Does this absolutely have to have?
So I had a lot of good conversationsthere. That was a lot of fun.
And we put together those requirementslike, here's our bare minimum
that we have to have.
Here'sthe list of these would be nice to haves.
Right.
And then we took thatand we worked with Nathan
(17:51):
and we created a vendor matrix of,you know, how do each of these vendors
that we're going to interview,how do they score on this.
And then we that's how we chose.
We chosewe ended up moving forward with Hona.
And we're now in the processof we're doing a phased approach
to roll this out because we wantto make sure as we're going through it,
once we start having aspectsthat clients can test out, I want to start
(18:14):
pulling in a couple of clients hereand there to say, hey,
how does this work for you?
What do we need to tweak?
Because the last thing I want to dois turn it on
and have all of our clients have,you know, an experience
all at once and not have thatkind of like quality control over it.
So we're really doing a very intentional,slow roll,
phased approach to the client portal.
(18:36):
Does that answer Yeah.
That helps put some colorbehind the timeline to get there.
Because you could have done all thisin two years or three months.
So how long did it taketo get to this point where you're at now?
Not taking into consideration like thatthe research Keith had done
(18:57):
like years ago, I would sayI mean, it's probably it's October now.
I mean, it'sbetween like the vendor analysis,
like we took one quarter to firm upwhat we absolutely wanted
to have for the clientsand do the vendor analysis.
Like we justthat's all we did for that whole quarter.
When was the last time your team calledto book a lead who didn't book?
(19:20):
If you can't answer that,neither can your intake team.
And that means every lead.
Who said I need to think aboutit is sitting in your CRM right now
without an owner, without a follow update, and no next step?
That lead is not dead.
That's revenue that you will not getthat you forgot about.
At Sterling Lawyers, 75% of our revenuecomes after that first conversation, 75%
(19:45):
meaning even if you just do this poorly,you will change your firm over night.
We track this across thousands of cases,and we found the money in the follow up.
We're teaching the exact follow up systembehind that number in a free training.
How do we prepare for every call?
What do our agents actually say?
(20:06):
And what is the cadence that runs behindevery lead until they book?
Please see the link belowso that you can sign up today.
So that would be like Q1 of this yearin 2025, just that in Q2,
you don't have to be exact on this,but Q2, what did it look like?
Would you do in Q2?
Q2, we started to do research on what.
(20:31):
So in in the portalthat we're using the platform,
they have athey have like a phase display.
So we started researchwith Kim and Rebecca.
What do we want our clients to see.
How is that going to look differentfor a divorce versus
a paternity case versus a child supportwe identified?
(20:52):
Okay, what cases are we going to do first?
Because I trying to do all of the casesall at once was going to be just
way too much.
So we chose three case types are the casetypes that we handle the most of right.
Divorce paternity custody placement.
And we started there.
We identified what should the client seewhen they log into their client portal.
(21:12):
How what kind of information dowe want them to have access to.
Right. Are we going to have an FAQ.
Are we going to have likephase description.
So that'swe spent most of Q2 really honing that in
for these first three case types.
And then it washow do we trigger that for the clients.
So what is going to bewhat is going to be the trigger
(21:34):
for the client to tell them okay,your case has now been filed and now
you have your first court date coming up.
We also had to think through what happensif it's limited scope versus full rep.
So the really nitty gritty.
Boring detailsthat make it all the difference here.
(21:57):
Yeah.
So in Q3, rather, what was the priorityin Q3 on that project?
So Q3 the priority waswe had to do some additional development
to give our clients accessto their box folder.
So boxes are document managementstorage platform that we use.
It's integrated into Salesforce.
We needed to do a little bit ofwe needed to do some creativity
(22:18):
to get our clients access to that.
So we had to reach outand we actually needed to pull
in some external resourcesto help us with that a little bit.
So we were determininghow do we get our clients access
to their documents, how are we goingto reformat or intake forms?
Because in today's instance,we have several different intake forms
(22:41):
based off of case type.
We still wanted to keep that.
We still because we don't want to havewe need to get the right information
from clients without having to create10,000 different intake forms.
So we went through we ended up havingfour different intake forms that are
case based.
(23:01):
So we were working through those details.
How do we need to set up the sinkbetween Salesforce and the client portal?
Because the other thingwe need to make sure is that
we're not asking our legal teamto operate in two different platforms.
We need to make sure that these thingsare in sync together
so that so the intake formand the box folder,
and honing the triggersbetween the phases.
(23:24):
That's what we spent a lot of Q3What's the priority this quarter?
Q4. priority this quarter is we aregoing to towards the end of Q4.
We want to get some test users inand using the intake form.
I also am finalizing the phasesfor all of the other case types.
(23:45):
So prenup restrainingorders, property division, etc.
we're going towe've got those phases all figured out,
all those triggers figured out.
We had to we had to wrestlethrough the triggers for those.
And how do we account for limited scopeand coaching?
Right.
(24:05):
Because we have like the documentreview, we've got the court prep.
So answeringall of those questions as well, how do we
how do we implement those.
How do wehow do those look and feel to our clients.
But yeah, so the goal for the end of Q4is to have a couple of test clients
in the client portal,the client app, utilizing it and actively
giving us some feedback on it for divorce,paternity, and custody placement.
(24:28):
Yeah, let me just share this from thefrom the leader perspective.
I'd like I struggle with patients, right.
Like all like all many leaders do.
And I would have tried to take a projectlike this and ram it through in three
or 4 or 5 months.
At the longest,I would have been excruciating long to me.
And obviously you're laughing.
I can see you smiling here, Kelly.
You know what would have happenedhad that occurred?
(24:51):
Just to kind of recaphow you took this massive project
touching many aspects of our firmand broke it down into bite sized chunks.
So less is more on how you approach this.
Each quarterQ1, you went through the select,
you and the team went throughthe selection process, the criteria
you just focused on that.
You got that done in Q1.
Q2 came, then you started getting buy in.
(25:12):
You went to Kim and Rebecca.
Two of our paralegal leadersgot their input,
got their involvement, thattheir fingerprints all over this project.
Find out what the clients really wanton a day to day in the trenches basis.
Then you went into Q3, youyou needed outside development
to kind of get a lot of that stuff ready,prepared, put together and really get it
(25:33):
client ready as much as client rightas you can get within a quarter.
And then now we're in Q4this year, I would have expected
this to have been launched back in Q2and it would have failed.
But now we're in Q4 and you're testingyou're going through the slow,
tedious process of testing itbecause we've got 970 plus
clients active right now.
We can't roll this out to all of them,or else it'll be a massive like,
(25:56):
bang your head against the wall headache.
If we start having breakdownsamong that many clients.
So you're in test with a fewand then probably launch this Q 2 or 3
of next year fully across the full teamas you've kind of vetted this out.
Right.
So that that's afor those project managers, that's smart.
That's the wayyou get a project at the door.
(26:17):
And for those of us that are tryingto push the growth of our law firm,
please pay attention to that.
Because sometimes slow is fast.
And it's taken me 11 years in my seatto start to appreciate that.
And I get it all the way.
Kelly, I know you're going to say thatI don't got it all the way.
I got that.
But to start to understand that.
So that's really, really smartand how you how you look at that.
(26:38):
I think the beauty of that process,coming from someone
who likes to get things done very quickly,is I was sitting here thinking,
how many good or great ideas havewe had that didn't work because we tried
to push it through too fast.
Right.
There's got to be so manythat if we would have had a Kelly
(27:00):
that could have taken the time to do itcorrectly.
That's where your whole low,smooth, smooth, fast
approach really comes in.
Kelly, I've watchedyou also launched some of these projects
and that requires a lot of changemanagement on your side
on the team sign on our other leaders.
(27:20):
Can you talk to that a little biton how you take a project, whether it's
this one or another one, and beginto enact the actual change in behavior
and thought acceptance that you get.
What are some of your best practicesthere?
I think a lot of that comes from pullingthe users in sooner
rather than later, getting them involvedin those conversations from the very
(27:41):
beginning to identify that pain point.
So, I mean, many of these projectsstart with a ticket,
like an enhancement requestfor a couple of tickets, right?
Like a you geta handful of tickets from the same team
related to a dashboardor related to a task flow.
(28:01):
Okay, let's get those people in the room.
Let's get that teamor those leaders in a room.
And let's talk through all of these issuesand figure out,
okay, if if the way it's workingtoday is not what you want.
How should it work and document that out.
And that immediatelycreates, well, one, it's demonstrating
to your users, like your internal clientsthat heard them.
(28:23):
And how do wehow do we need to fix this for you
so that this doesit does the work you need it to do.
So that right off the batyou're creating that by in
for this project in the future.
That doesn't necessarilymean you're going to work on that project
or prioritize it right now,but you're laying the groundwork for,
okay, now we have this documented.
(28:44):
We know what the main pain points are.
Let this may not be the right timeto take the next step,
right of starting that functional spec,starting that proof of concept doc.
But at least we knowthat this is a pain point
that we need to prioritize in the future.
So that's part of it.
From there, you know thata lot of it is just making sure
(29:06):
you're keeping that communication openso that they know.
And this is where those project meetingscome in.
Here's where we're at with that project.
You know, if it's been prioritizedto work on currently
Im explaining, okay, we're in thewe're in the process of a functional spec.
Once that functional spec is up andin the sandbox, I'm going to pull you in.
I'm going to walk you through itso you can see this in real time.
(29:29):
What we developed for you,did this hit the mark
or does this not hit the mark? Right.
I'm going through my project planas as we're going.
I make my project plan for my researchright after we have that conversation
and I walk the the users through.
Okay, here's what we saidyou needed it to do.
Is this workinghow you wanted it to or is it not?
And we we iterate from there. Right.
(29:50):
So if we come back in that initial useracceptance testing and we miss the mark on
maybe, maybe the end solution is correct,but how we got from point A to point
B isn't doesn't work for the for thefor the user for whatever reason.
Okay, I have to I have to go backand do a little bit of a, of a
tweak here with our coding or with a flow.
(30:12):
We do that, I pull them back inand we look at it again.
So it's reallyjust a very iterative process,
making sure that the team is aware of itthe every step of the way.
After that, you know, theythey have the final testing
and like, yes, this worksthe way I want it to.
I start doing the documentation,the how to docs I coordinate
(30:32):
depending on the size of the project.
Right.
If I need to coordinate doing in-persontraining, sometimes I will do that.
Sometimes, depending on the project,the generally
the department head will do it,but if it's a more complicated project,
I'll hop inhelp or Nathan will train in and L10,
make sure they know how to accessthe demo videos or the how to docs.
(30:53):
And then the final piece is reallyafter it's launched.
What issues do we have? Right.
Making sure that we're putting in tickets,like where did we miss the mark
either in our testing or in our research?
Yeah.
So that I mean, that's I'mtalking high level,
but the change management process,I mean, we kind of build in touch points
(31:15):
throughout our software developmentlifecycle to ensure
that they know what's happeningas the project is moving forward.
So on that post launch,those postmortems that you do.
I know that watching you push throughquite a few projects over the years,
you've developed a finely honed setof tools, your best practices.
(31:36):
I think this is where the goldand what you have to share with us today
is that, by the way, so walk us throughwhat are some of your
best practices that you've picked upand you've been honed over these years
on how you push projectsthrough and a family law firm?
So I talkeda little bit about the backlog meeting.
So those are the meetingsthat I do with Nathan.
(31:57):
That's a crucial part of just makingsure nothing's falling through the cracks.
The other is the project meetings,making sure that those team members know
what's on their department's listand that they have by in on like I am
in those meetings asking, what isthe next thing your team needs developed
like give me give me the prioritized listone through ten.
(32:18):
What is it?
And the idea there is when we finishwhatever project we have, right
when we come to the the next planning,or sometimes I'll move,
sometimes I'll move smallerprojects up in a quarter, depending
on, you know,if I have available and resources.
Right.
So I knowin that from that prioritized list,
this is the next thing they need from us.
(32:39):
Let's move it up.
Let's look at that research.
Let's start that functional specwherever we left off on that project
or wherever we're at with it.
So having that, having that backlog,having those project meetings
where those team leaders get to givethat input is super important
and has been a game changer.
The other thing I will say as a bestpractice is just having these standing
(33:00):
meetings that I know, like, particularlywith some of our turns, Katie,
Holly like their calendar,their poor calendars.
So I just I haveI have a recurring meeting with Mary,
with Katie, with Holly,even Kim and Rebecca.
And if I don't have anything that weekfor them, I let them know.
And I just take it off their calendarfor that week.
(33:20):
But I'm putting on those calendarsfor that week.
Sometimes I'll do itlike weeks ahead of time.
This week we need to test this dashboard.
Or this week I need you to review thehow to documentation
that I created for this tool,so that they always
kind of know if they're looking aheador if they need to determine, hey,
do I need to have this meeting with Kellythis week?
We're either prioritizing your backlog.
(33:42):
If we haven't done that and we're lookingat user acceptance testing,
but having that saved time withthose users has been invaluable.
And then the last thing I'll sayis just my calendar, like
I utilize Monday,as I mentioned for the sprint planning
and I amthat is just in lockstep with my calendar.
(34:04):
So I go and I calendar out what areall the things I need to do this week?
What research do I need to make time for?
What testing do I need to make time for?
Who is waiting for feedbackon a functional spec?
And I'm putting those detailson my calendar so that I know, like,
here are the things that need to happenand move these projects forward.
Kelly,we've got, I don't know, going
and getting close to about 100 teammates.
(34:28):
And I know many of them are onsome project that you're you're tracking.
How do you how do you hold us accountable.
How do you hold teammates accountable.
What are some of the best tactics you dothat you use to hold people accountable?
Something that has worked well for merecently is I utilize
like one of those meeting botslike fireflies
(34:50):
to just record and transcribe,and I actually keep all of those notes
because it does happenwhere someone's like, hey,
we didn't want this to work that way,or why is this being displayed that way?
And I can actually utilizebecause I'm not dealing with like client
facing things I'll actually utilizelike ChatGPT to say, hey,
here's my meeting notesfrom like this whole project.
(35:13):
Where did we talk about this?
What was the consensus on this?
And I can I can then pinpoint itback to a date and say, hey,
this is what we said in this meetingabout how we wanted this to work.
if we're changing our mindnow, this is a V2.
Kelly's keeping receipts.
I gotta remember thatnext time I I'm meeting with her.
(35:35):
on this day at this time you said Yeah.
Well, Kelly, this has been tremendous.
This is I've just really enjoyed hearingyou talk about this
because some of the stuffI didn't know, it's
a really, really smart thinkingyou've put into building our projects
and getting them done.
So thank you for coming ontoday and talking about them.
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