Before I start discussing e-billing, let me tell you a story to illustrate how important it is.
I remember walking through a large bank’s offices in the late 1990′s. As we walked back to the conference room to give our sales pitch on why they needed a e-billing system we had to squeeze past boxes four feet high.
I asked “What’s in the boxes?” They said legal bills.
During the sales pitch I asked several questions:
How much do you spend in legal bills? Answer: we don’t know.
How many law firm vendors do you have? Answer: we don’t know.
Home many legal bills do you get a year? Answer: we don’t know.
I knew then that the software we had designed was going to sell itself. In the next series of posts I will be explaining why e-billing is so important and why we at Onit have spent so much time designing a system that works for you, no matter how big or how small your company may be.
In our last post we briefly mention waterfall development and why in client work, it’s important to avoid that method when managing a project. To explain why, we want to go into a little more detail on what waterfall development really means.
It is typically defined by seven linear stages: conception, initiation, analysis, design, construction, testing and maintenance. Some of these stages can last months and are usually marked by big milestones. It is only upon the completion of these milestones that the customer or client is reengaged for review.
The advantage of this method is that the customer has to really think about what he wants before software engineers spend time coding. And it allows for predictable, top-down management of engineers from the project manager’s perspective. But the biggest disadvantage of this method is that if the product starts to veer, or if too many project interpretations are wrong, it is a long time before the customer knows it. There is the potential for vast amounts of rework and very unhappy customers.
In the software engineering world, they use a disciplined project management process called “agile” The agile method is based on teamwork, frequent inspection and adaption, self-organization and accountability, and a business approach that aligns work with customer needs and company goals.
We think those tenets should be applied to all project management systems, not just the development world, so the agile method was central to our thinking when we designed Onit.
Agile project management, unlike more traditional systems, is neither linear nor marked by complete specifications being written up front. Agile project managers work in much smaller chunks of time, 2 weeks for example, and fast iteration is key. Yes, specifications still need to be well understood but that doesn’t have to happen up front. Since you are moving fast, you can change those quickly and incorporate new ones as needed. These constant updates also keep everyone in the loop and save time.
We think agile lawyering makes sense. My lawyers and I should iterate more frequently on my projects. Onit allows you to define your goals clearly and up front and then through “discussions” in the service, you can iterate to make sure the project gets completed with the least rework. And you have a running transcript of decisions and conversations. Imagine having one place where you can see everyone’s updates, rather than having to call a meeting to discuss them!