New Year Revolutions

21
Jan
2009

Chris Davies

Last year was a very good year for me and my team. At the beginning of 2008 the team was still very much reactive in terms of the services (or lack of) we offered. By the end of the year we had launched our curriculum – now offering a dozen new courses. Our evaluation results have exceeded our wildest expectations and the feedback from the business (right up to Partner level) has been fantastic. I can pretty confidently say that we upped our game in 2008 and we now deliver more value than ever. So why do I still feel a little uneasy? The economic downturn in the second half of 2008 signalled the end of more than a decade of law firm growth – and of course law firm IT department growth. Many firms have made redundancies. No matter how secure you think you are, no one is bullet proof in the current climate. Can you honestly say that you haven't looked around the department and considered who would go before you? It's a horrible thought, but human nature when you have bills to pay (at this point I'm pondering the possibility that it's just me who's had this thought and I'm going to burn in hell). Everyone is now thinking about strategies for increasing visibility and delivering more value.

Increased visibility for my team and the services we offer was one of my biggest goals for 2008. I think we successfully achieved this aim and I'm especially glad we did. The business needs to know who you are, what you do and why you're valuable. It's so easy to assume people know this already. Training teams have a particular problem, often shared by other departments in IT. Most of our business comes from Secretaries and Support. I'm not saying we don't train Fee Earners, because we do, but the higher up the firm you go the less work you get. There are Partners in every firm who haven't requested training in years. The real problem with this fact is this - Partners pay the bills and they make the nasty decisions when times get tough. You have a problem if they don't even know your name.

My team proactively promotes and markets our services. We approach this as though we are an external supplier trying to win business. We have a 'nothing is too much trouble' attitude to customer service, which we try to apply to everything we do. We regularly publish our curriculum, which not only lists our courses, but focusses on selling the benefits of attending. Each new course is launched with advertising in the form of posters and emails. We regularly send out firm-wide emails advertising the courses we are running. We attend departmental meetings and regularly meet with Secretarial Co-ordinators and the Heads of Department. The aim is high visibility, not only to get bums on seats, but to ensure everyone in the firm knows how much we offer. If a Partner isn't interested in training I still want them to know who we are, what services we offer and how hard we're working for the firm.

Floorwalking – sigh! IT Trainers either love it or hate it. The problem with floorwalking is having a reason to floorwalk. I used to feel silly knocking on doors just to say hello and ask if they had any questions. I felt as though I left the impression I had nothing better to do than interrupt people. Not good, but floorwalking can be productive. My team calls it Proactive Floorwalking. Each trainer spends a morning/afternoon each week in a different department. We send out an email to the department to say we're there to answer any questions and offer help if needed. In addition to this, we use this time to get to know people (and the work they do) and to advertise our services. It's gone down very well and we've received excellent feedback from the business. This isn't a revolutionary service. Most IT Training teams do it, but it's important that it's done regularly and is high visibility.

Do you sometimes feel like an unsung hero? If you do something well, tell absolutely everyone! I take reporting very seriously. I very rarely get asked for statistics or feedback from the business, but they get them anyway. We record training stats (obviously). We evaluate every course. We even record how many questions we receive, how many desk visits we make and how much time we spend on ad-hoc requests and training support. This might seems obsessive, but it doesn't take much time to do. I regularly report progress to my boss and to his boss, whether they want updating or not. I even delivered an annual report to the Managing Partner last year. He didn't know who I was. He does now! The business doesn't always know how hard you work and what value you add to the firm. If you don't tell them they may never know.

Is there a point to all of this?

None of the above is new or revolutionary. Not for most IT Training teams at least – we're used to advertising & evaluating our services. Can the same be said for other functions within IT? I accept that if you're a Systems Developer it's much more difficult to do this, but not totally impossible. Can you do more to increase the visibility of your team and the work you do? Do you evaluate your products and ask the business for feedback (not just during rollouts)? Do you meet with people in the business?

I used to work with a techie who met regularly with people in the business to discuss the products he created/supported. The aim of the meeting was to gather feedback, discuss any frustrations and to see if more could be done to customise the product to the needs of that department. I remember discussing this with the Head of Litigation after such a meeting. He was blown away by the techie's proactive attitude. This guy was genuinely interested in providing a better service to that department. He hustled for the work and did much more than was expected of him. He built an excellent reputation in the business as a result.

Partners want to see where their money is being spent. We put too much emphasis into the big projects and often forget about good old fashioned customer service. You don't need an ITIL qualification to attend a departmental meeting. If your team rocks, tell everyone it rocks. If you've improved a service, tell everyone you've improved it. If the business doesn't know who you are, then get out and introduce yourself. Hustle for visibility.

On a personal note, my aim is not to persuade the firm that my team provides the best support service, but to ensure they know what services we provide and they see how hard we work to provide a better service. No one is bullet proof – I'm certainly no exception, but I know I have done everything I can do to justify my position. Can you say the same?