A draft improvement plan for Project Assignment and Project Tracking/Management has been created which will be validated, published and placed into action this week. All partners have been briefed and signed off on moving ahead with implementation of consolidation of all sources of ingress for project requests and establishment of a standard defined workflow of assignment and request information. The vision for the workflow has been published as a “Should-Be” process map on display in Brook’s office. The detailed “As-Is” Billing & Collection process map was drafted and validated as that project team kicked-off with an improvement event. This week the process and associated data will be analyzed in order to develop improvement options and development of a “Should-Be” process map for that process as well.
Accomplishments Last Week (March 16 – March 20)
- DWG conducted an improvement event on March 16 with process practitioners in Delray validating proposed improvement changes for the Project Tracking/Management process.
- DWG completed one-on-one calls with partners to gain feedback and suggestions for the proposed improvement changes for the Project Assignment process.
- A project plan for implementing changes to Project Assignment and Project Tracking/ Management processes was developed.
- The Capability and Capacity Dashboard report, indicating history of project performance and cycle time by project type, was completed and training material created.
- Focus Groups for review of each major matter type to identify problems that negatively affect cycle time for projects were scheduled for the week of March 23.
- The Billing & Collection process was mapped to identify opportunities to reduce billing cycle time and reduce Accounts Receivable.
- A “Should-Be” process map draft was created for Project Assignment and Project Tracking/Management processes.
- The Matter Naming Convention SOP was completed and rules applied to client names in TimeSlips.
- PIF history was examined by client to identify and establish standard PIF templates that will pre-populate fields to facilitate project intake.
Accomplishments Expected This Week (March 23-March 27)
- Research on document workflow technology will be completed, and selection of a solution for project intake and PIF workflow will begin.
- Client preferences prompts and instructions will begin to be integrated into the PIF workflow solution.
- Documentation will begin on FMV Request assignment criteria across all service lines.
- Communication plans announcing process changes for stakeholders and clients will be prepared.
- The Matter Naming Convention standards will be applied to folder names on the L: drive.
Positive Recognition
- Great attention and patience is required for intense process work; Brook Whitman, Kim Edoff, Kim Longacre, Michelle Dewolf, Deb Geesey and Liz Diamond were troopers as they contributed during Project Assignment, Tracking/Management and Billing & Collections process improvement events!