Does your company have a Legal department and an IT department?
Do they get along?
Do they share relevant information, speak each other’s ‘language’ and collaborate in a way that maximises the company’s productivity, efficiency and profitability?
If you answered ‘No’ or ‘Not really, but we get by’ to any of the above questions, it might be time to think about ways to improve collaboration between the two departments.
Collaboration is not just about cooperating or simply ‘getting along’. It means working towards a shared vision and understanding each other so that the firm achieves its most critical business outcomes.
Here are 5 strategies you can try!
Strategy #1: Set up a dedicated IT team for Legal
If possible, set up an IT team that works only with the Legal team. Even 1-2 dedicated resources will be better than none. These resources will be able to understand the context of legal problems and consequently be able to provide more relevant and quicker solutions, especially if this collective team has shared goals.
Strategy #2: Promote a knowledge-sharing culture with a common ‘language’
Make legal information accessible to the IT team and IT information accessible to the Legal team. With a centralised information management system, templates and standard workflows, both teams can reduce inefficiency and spend more of their time on value-adding tasks. Equally important, Legal needs to explain the ‘legalese’ for their IT requests and IT needs to explain IT ‘technobabble’ to Legal so there is no confusion, waste of time or scope for costly mistakes.
Strategy #3: Involve both teams in business decision-making
Have the stakeholders from both teams involved in any decision-making process as early as possible. Define success criteria for each and regularly evaluate shared goals. Schedule mutual ‘touch base’ sessions and ensure that everyone is aware of the needed outcomes and expected action items.
Strategy #4: Encourage and cultivate mutual empathy and trust
Empathy and trust are critical for collaboration. Encourage both teams to ask questions so they can learn about each other’s work and understand the constraints and challenges faced by the other. Request them to come up with ideas of how one team can improve their processes to help the other team become more effective.
Strategy #5: Communicate, communicate, communicate!
Encourage both teams to listen to each other and give honest feedback. Conduct a post-mortem analysis of issues and discuss what they can do as a team to avoid those issues in future. Remind them that they are a TEAM not OPPONENTS. Most importantly, ensure that communication is respectful, constructive and solution-oriented.
Beneficial collaboration requires effort but if done well, it can produce transformative results. And technology can be a great way to encourage seamless and effective collaboration!
Prime Infotech is a preferred reseller partner of many leading software products like Workshare, Nuance, Sophos, Adobe, Microsoft, Cisco that can help your teams collaborate effectively and grow your business. To know more about how we can help you address your particular needs, contact us.