One of the biggest drivers for improving law firm data governance is that everything happens in silos. When you dig a little deeper, you’ll find three challenges that must be addressed.
No one trusts the data
Complex organisations like law firms, technologies, processes, and people depend on each other for success. Most people in the firm will only see relevant data, so they need to trust that they are looking at quality data. However, a law firm’s lack of data maturity means that the data quality is low or the correct information is unavailable outside of the team which maintains it. A lack of access to good data contributes to a lack of trust in all the data people get. So, they start to create and manage their own versions of the same data.
Law firms manage data for operational, not strategic, reasons
Operational management means the day-to-day activities required to manage data as part of the firm’s transactional processes. In recent years, law firms have focused on achieving operational efficiency. Most law firms review each business service in turn (using techniques such as Six Sigma), and any documented processes start and stop at the function’s borders. But data doesn’t sit neatly in functional groupings. Many of the firm’s systems and processes utilise, for example, employee or client names. Strategic data management focuses on activities necessary to ensure competitive positioning and takes a cross-functional view of data and data management processes.
Lack of communication and transparency of data decisions
LThe operational focus on managing data in functional silos has the unintended consequence of minimising communication between teams. The lack of transparency means that no one understands the decision-making process behind operational data management decisions, even for data in which they are interested. This has a massive impact on culture. Without transparency and communication, there can be no trust. When leaders create structures designed not to communicate, employees mirror this behaviour and withhold what they really feel about how data is managed. This leads to a lack of trust in the data and each other. Without transparency, there is no mechanism for people to contribute to or collaborate on a challenging decision.
How can data governance help?
Data governance can help with privacy and regulatory compliance, data-driven decision-making, a shared data ecosystem, enhanced customer experience and user trust in data, and improved operational efficiency.
When law firms think about changing the operating model, particularly of their business services teams, one of the first activities is documenting all the teams’ processes. This is done to understand where alignment, offshoring, outsourcing, nearshoring, or alternative resourcing opportunities may exist.
The challenge with this approach is that it is done in functional silos – One person looks at all of Finance while another looks at all of BD and Marketing, IT or Knowledge. The consequences of this approach are that you can accidentally create more duplications of effort than before.
Data governance adds an extra layer on top of these processes.
Rather than looking at it functionally, it considers the processes in the context of a piece of data on its end-to-end journey through the firm. This provides a different dimension to support or enable consideration of operational model changes.
All of the drivers and challenges I talked about can be addressed, in whole or in part, by creating a data governance capability within your firm. By addressing these challenges, you can create a culture of trust and transparency in data management, leading to better decision-making and improved operational efficiency across the entire organisation.
Why is this important for the firm?
Well, Data Governance by design changes the historical law firm approach to managing data in business services or legal practice silos. Instead of that traditional view, it looks to manage critical data assets cross-functionally for the benefit of all.
To implement data governance effectively, law firms must create a unified vision of data that starts with leadership. Bringing the leadership together to create a shared vision for what they want the firm’s data to be can help focus on data commonalities and draw a clear line between the data vision and its strategic goals.
Data governance also requires the development of a framework for supporting and educating people to work collaboratively and improve cross-functional communication and transparency, which provides a focus and structure for data decision-making and a network for the data governance centre of excellence to leverage.
How do you start breaking silos?
Law firms commonly prioritise better collaboration (aka breaking down silos) when building their data governance initiatives. As the data governance lead, it’s crucial to establish trust and encourage communication between the different members of the framework group. By creating an environment that fosters open discussion, SMEs can better understand each other’s roles and responsibilities, which will help break down functional silos and increase active participation in workshops.
However, even after implementing a Data Governance Framework, some firms may struggle to see the expected adoption and traction. Often, data owners and stewards don’t communicate effectively with each other, which can lead to functional priorities taking precedence over data initiatives. This lack of collaborative problem-solving can hinder progress on data-related projects and improvements.
Data stewards may feel that the C-suite doesn’t understand the impact of their requests, while data owners may prioritise their functional priorities over other initiatives. This perception can cause data governance activities to stagnate, leading to a loss of support from senior stakeholders.
To avoid this, engaging with data stewards and encouraging a collaborative mindset is crucial. By involving data stewards in discussions and decision-making, data owners are less likely to prioritise their functional priorities over data initiatives. This approach requires less centralised control and more devolved cross-functional activity.
To achieve this mindset change, Iron Carrot uses and recommends using, a guided conversation framework that becomes incrementally more challenging and collaborative over several months. By prioritising collaboration and communication, law firms can focus on improving data quality and supporting strategic projects with the added benefit of reducing silos.
Conclusion
Addressing these challenges will help break down functional silos in your law firm. Data governance can help create a culture of trust and transparency in data management by enabling people to work collaboratively with a shared vision for the firm’s data.
It is also necessary to develop a data governance framework, as this provides a focus and structure for data decision-making. This will improve operational efficiency and enhance the client experience, which is essential for any law firm’s growth and success.
Innovative law firms have big goals for improving the client experience through data innovation.
Through our extensive law firm background, we have developed a unique data governance road-mapping approach to help law firm leaders launch the proper foundation for data governance.
If you want to chat confidentially about how Iron Carrot can help your firm with its Data Governance initiatives, then why not book a call to talk to us?
