36 S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 6 w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m
This is Part II of a III-part Series. Part III will appear in the
October issue of Canadian Lawyer. An adapted version of
this article will also appear in the upcoming "Legal Project
Management: A Quick Reference Guide", 4th Edition, by Jim
Hassett, Mike Egnatchik and 24 contributing authors to be pub-
lished in Fall 2016 by LegalBizDev. Pre-orders of the book can
be made at: http://www.legalbizdev.com/projectmanagement/
quickreferenceguide.html
I
n Part I of this series, published in the
August Edition of Canadian Lawyer, we
covered Kanban, a visualization and work-
flow tool commonly used in Agile project
management. This, Part II, will focus on a
related approach known as Scrum.
Scrum and Kanban often go hand in
hand. While Kanban largely revolves
around tracking the status of a matter or project
through cards representing sub-tasks on a "Kan-
Sponsored by
ban board", Scrum provides
a framework for how team
members organize themselves
and conduct team meetings
in relation to the project.
Teams typically engage in
periodic meetings, where
team members often stand
to encourage short and
focused status updates. The
frequency of these meetings
can be determined based on
what makes the most sense
for the team. For example,
when working on a complex
and time sensitive corporate
transaction with a looming
closing date, meetings may be
scheduled every day or sec-
ond day to keep everyone on
track. If working on a portfo-
lio of litigation matters with-
out as much time sensitivity,
meetings may be scheduled
once every week or two based
upon the needs of the team.
Regardless of the frequen-
cy, during each meeting each
team member takes their turn
answering three questions in
no more than two minutes in
total:
What did I do since the
last meeting?
What will I do before the
next meeting?
What is blocking me and/
or what do I need help with?
By Paul Saunders
An Agile Approach to
Legal Project Management
-
Part II: Scrum
