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initiatives full-time. Innovation often requires a specialized team with var- ied backgrounds and expertise that partner with front-line workers to craft custom solutions to address the unique challenges that they face. It is essential that your people are inti- mately involved with the solutions being developed or they won't feel that they "own" solutions. Without ownership there is no change. 3. Listen to your Customers – Any change initiative that does not start with the underlying needs of your customers and is not firmly grounded in satisfying those needs is doomed to fail. But remember to use a broad definition of your custom- ers. Your customers are anyone, both inside and out of your organization, that receive value from your business processes. Be sure to identify their needs in advance and translate them into requirements before embarking on your project. The last thing you want to do is solve a problem your customers don't care about. 4. Think like a Startup – Start-up com- panies have vision but with untested ideas they can't afford wasting months building something nobody wants. Successful start-ups often begin by developing a minimal solu- tion that satisfies a basic customer need. They then give it to their cus- tomer as soon as possible. Customer feedback then drives iterations of that initial solution leading to a bet- ter product. The key is to start small, with bite-size pieces, and to value learning above all else. In-house legal departments can use the same approach when developing untested ideas to help them streamline their operations. 5. Visualize your Work – Progress on knowledge work often becomes buried in countless emails and status reports. It becomes difficult to iden- tify opportunities for improvement and to track progress when there is no single place where progress is visualized. Techniques as simple as using post-it notes on a white- board to track work in progress or mapping out existing processes to identify waste offer an inexpensive way to gain visibility on workflow and increase team collaboration and accountability. 6. Measure your Progress – It is critical for an improvement team to justify the resources expended on a project. Strong positive word of mouth, while beneficial, will not win over the naysayers. You need hard data to prove that your work is producing results. Without mea- surements to bolster your achieve- ments, you may find it difficult to make the business case for further improvement efforts. 7. Embrace Technology (at the right time) – Technology is capable of doing amazing things, but if you throw it at a problem without proper training and engagement by the people that will ultimately use it, then it will often fail. Once you have a clear idea of what you want to accomplish, your team is on board, and the enabling processes are put in place, then it's time to consider how technology can make that process better, faster, cheaper. 8. Develop a culture of continuous improvement – As the old business saying goes: "Culture eats strategy for breakfast." To effect meaning- ful long-term change you must change the way people think about their work every day. Resistance to change on the basis that it isn't the way it's always been done must give way to thinking that there is always a better way. Advise, coach, train and support your people and slowly ingrain in them a desire to always strive to get better at what they do. If you need help, hire external experts that can help kick start your change initiatives. Applying these eight ideas will help in-house legal departments respond to the increasing challenges they face. "Resistance to change on the basis that it isn't the way it's always been done must give way to thinking that there is always a better way."

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