Canadian Lawyer

18 J U N E 2 0 1 5 w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m T E C H S U P P O RT @k8simpson O P I N I O N Collaboration between lawyers, and between lawyers and clients, is largely based on multiple edits being made to the same document. But our monolithic docu- ment management systems don't allow for real-time simultaneous editing. Document collaboration happens sequentially and in bottomless e-mail threads instead. The new players in this market understand this as a major drawback to both efficiency and productivity in our new drive to be "lean" and for value-driven services. So, rather than the document being kicked around like the proverbial football, players instead gather around a shared display of the docu- ment to work on it (see Google Docs and Closing Folders as good examples, with Word 2013 and 2016 now adding more robust collaboration tools). Also at our firms are project teams that collaborate by being able to plan, track, and communicate throughout a project. New legal project management solutions on the market take into account the need to create a shared display or platform on which this planning, tracking, and communication can (visually) be carried out. "Shared display" lies at the heart of successful collaboration. "Shared dis- play is perhaps the most important and under-recognized advance in collaborative technology in the last couple of decades," said Jeff Conklin in the Winter 2009 Rot- man Management Magazine. But what about shared display is so important? Establish shared understanding I work a lot with Magic Whiteboard and Sharpies. As a knowledge architect in UX Land, visual tools for brainstorming, pro- totyping, and communication were my stock-in-trade. Whiteboards, flipcharts, wireframes, and their digital equivalents create the shared display needed for col- laboration. They allow teams, whether in the same room or not, to get on the same page and to the heart of the issue faster. It is a key principle for both Lean and Six Sigma methodologies in legal pro- cess improvement initiatives to achieve a "shared understanding" within cross-dis- ciplinary teams. Getting to a client-centric world involves closing the gap between those that plan and design legal solutions, and the end-users (i.e. clients). Ensuring both lawyer and client get to a shared understanding of what will be delivered, by when, and for how much is at the heart of our LPM and LPI initiatives. And if you've seen any of the outputs of these initiatives, you'll know they are highly visual. There's a "picture superiority effect" where "concepts are much more likely to be remembered experientially if they are presented as pic- tures than as words." Like building and landscape architects who create highly visual specs or 3D mod- els of their designs, so too do our sketches, shared documents, and prototypes create that shared understanding about intent. Encourage diversity & innovation These shared displays allow often diverse teams to focus and engage on single issues, whether it's a process map to visu- ally illustrate steps in a process, or a (well- designed) PowerPoint deck that walks a meeting of minds through a thought process. Having a shared display brings clarity to complex and contentious discus- sions by creating a visual representation of the conversation that's happening, and in real-time. "Dialogue mapping" for exam- ple, is a new kind of tool and approach for skilled facilitators and is beginning to take hold in some industries as a way to keep groups fixed on generating insights and ideas around a particular "wicked problem." "Left to their own devices, people will choose to collaborate with others they know well — which can be deadly for innovation." — HBR Spotlight on Innova- tion (July-August 2011). The connections we can call upon in our communities of practice using enterprise collaborative platforms enable a more diverse input of ideas and insights that can deliver the new and the innova- tive. Michael Nielsen's Reinventing Dis- covery: The New Era of Networked Science describes some challenges of collabora- tion within the scientific community where co-authorship is the norm. This type of collaboration often involves work- ing on the specification of the topic, and checking each other's work for errors, mis- communication, and irrelevant drafting, but not on the work itself. But there is a realization among individual experts that teams can cover more knowledge and on a wider range of topics, than individuals ollaborate – v. to work together with others to achieve a common goal. There's a new buzzword in Legal Tech Town: collaboration. (Or is it that once you notice a word you just can't stop seeing it every- where?) Making collaboration easier within our firms is apparently being built into every new piece of software and system we're inves- tigating for our firms. It seems the system is not worth its salt if it doesn't in some way enable deeper collaboration between people. But while the tech industry is armed and ready for the collabora- tion tipping point, our firms are just starting to see its true benefits. The tipping point for collaboration C Smart creatives using highly visual tools and systems to create a higher degree of shared understanding between lawyer and client. By Kate Simpson

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