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Effective knowledge sharing and collaboration across support functions.

By Rachel Wood, McGrigors.

I have a simple and practical approach to knowledge management (KM) – it’s all about the action. By this, I mean that what really matters is helping others to work more effectively, to a higher standard and, ideally, with less anxiety. So for me, the test of effective knowledge sharing across support functions is whether the support functions work together more effectively on firm-wide projects.

Often working together more effectively simply means communicating well, which requires thought and dedication, but no sophisticated technology. In fact, I have to remind myself that just because something is simple, doesn’t mean it’s not good KM.

Support functions at McGrigors
Before looking in more detail at how support functions can share knowledge, I want to define what I mean by support functions and look at how we organise these at McGrigors. A support function in a legal business is any area of the firm that isn’t directly generating fees. This includes KM itself, business development (BD) or marketing, HR, the print room, finance, IT, training, and central management. McGrigors is unusual in that many of the support functions are collected together in one Risk and Knowledge Management (RKM) Team.

We have operated under this structure for many years now and the result is joined-up planning and action. The RKM partner is an equity partner and board member, working full time on risk and KM. This reflects the value that the firm places on this area. It also means that there is a steady flow of information around IT, training, KM and risk, up to the board and back again.

Communicate, communicate, communicate
There is no doubt that our RKM structure helps enormously in effective knowledge sharing, but we also work hard to make it effective.

At the end of each financial year, the RKM partner, the heads of IT and training and I meet outside of the office to discuss the firm’s upcoming business plan and our own strategy and objectives for the following year. This is then circulated up to the Board for incorporation into the firm’s business planning, and down to the IT, training, KM and risk teams. Finally, the agreed overall strategy and objectives are addressed in each individual’s formal goals for the year.

We also speak to each other several times a week about projects we’re working on together, as well as general chat about what our teams are up to. Currently, I am working on refining our matter-centric system with the head of IT and on designing an e-mail management training course with the head of training.

This constant flow of communication is echoed in the support managers’ conference calls, which are held every six weeks. These ‘concalls’ include the RKM partner, RKM heads, the heads of HR and BD, the chief finance officer and the office managers. Their purpose is to highlight big projects so that everyone knows what’s going on and so that we don’t launch two new initiatives at the same time.

We also have a central Outlook calendar for all the support managers so that people can diarise and be aware of big events. For example, the training team diarise the trainee seat change dates so that the finance team don’t launch a new expense claims system the same week.

Finally, we sometimes visit each other’s team meetings so that we can better understand what each team does and how it does it. For example, the information services manager attends the BD team meetings on occasion so that they can exchange information about what news feeds and sector information are available and required.

Project management
Over the past few years, we have had more and more big firm-wide projects which have involved all the support functions – we’ve had a few mergers, we’ve converted to LLP twice – once in Great Britain and once in Northern Ireland – and we’ve just rolled out a matter-centric working system. The one truism about all these projects is that you can never be too inclusive or communicate too much to the rest of the business. In every case project plans have been drawn up in consultation with all the support functions, project teams have been pulled from across all support functions and there have been surprisingly few traffic accidents.

The future
The next plan for McGrigors is to provide more direct KM support to the support functions. With only 12 professional support lawyers (PSLs) firm-wide, we have limited resources to devote to such projects, so I will act as the ‘support team PSL’. Next year, I will work with Business Development Unit to establish a tender database, and with finance on pulling together, scoping and pricing know-how and know-who. As with all other KM projects, the key to the success of these projects will be to talk to people – making sure that we understand each other’s objectives, how the other works and what everyone else is up to.

Rachel Wood is head of knowledge management at McGrigors LLP. She can be contacted at rachel.wood@mcgrigors.com.