The Savvy team recently went through a new document management system (DMS) rollout with a law firm and it went so well that I thought I would share some “Lessons Learned” in my blog. Savvy can only take credit for being one of the tools in the toolbox that this law firm used in its rollout, so this blog is not a mere ploy for self-promotion. I think we can all learn from the smooth, effective process that they followed.

Here’s how it all went down…

Play with the Platform

The firm (let’s call it “Firm ABC”) signed a contract to use NetDocuments and scheduled the implementation process with a private technology consulting firm. For a full month, a few select staff members from the firm used NetDocs in a sandbox testing environment, learning the system and explaining to the consulting firm exactly how they wanted the platform to work. During this process, the team was able to discuss ideas for how they might organize their documents and how they’d like the interface to work.

Tweak for Your Specific Uses

Using all of the suggestions from that month-long testing phase, the tech consulting firm adopted all of the changes into the firm’s NetDocs system. Then, they were ready to migrate the new system firm-wide.

Sneak Peek of DMS Rollout

On the Thursday and Friday just before the weekend that the migration would happen, Firm ABC asked Savvy to conduct several “sneak peek” training sessions that would introduce everyone to the basics. This way, no one would arrive on Monday and be totally hamstrung by the new system. They would arrive on Monday knowing enough to continue working until they received more in-depth training.

First Week of DMS Rollout

On Monday morning starting at 8 a.m., Savvy began running trainings for small groups. Each training lasted one and one-half hours and reached nearly everyone in the firm. These were both in-person and remote trainings, and they continued through Tuesday.

By Wednesday, Firm ABC reported that everyone was feeling comfortable with the system. It was time to start offering advanced concept trainings.

Now here is where the roll-out plan got truly impactful:

While one Savvy trainer ran in-classroom courses on advanced NetDocs techniques, a second trainer walked throughout the firm, office to office, offering one-on-one assistance. By Friday, all training support was happening on the floor with both trainers walking throughout the office and supplying answers to questions, short-cuts and other advice.

Why was this such a smart tactic? As one firm representative said, “Attorneys don’t always make themselves available for trainings. They learn how to do something one way and they don’t want to waste time doing anything else. With a trainer going from office to office, we were able to break that pattern. We brought the trainings to them and they learned new skills.”

Build Feedback into the DMS Rollout

Savvy’s trainers were on the front-lines of the system migration because they were walking from office to office, so they saw people using NetDocs in different ways (effectively and ineffectively) and they even caught bugs in the system. Firm ABC made it clear that they wanted to keep communication wide-open with the Savvy trainers so that they could provide insights that might improve the software and the usage.

By the end of the first week, the majority of the firm’s staff and attorneys were using NetDocs the way it was intended, and they had a list of improvements to make. They also had a list of best practices to share firm-wide.

DMS Rollout: Week Two

Firm ABC kept one Savvy trainer available for week two of the rollout. This trainer conducted a combination of in-class trainings to share best practices, and floor support to continue answering questions while people worked.

The firm representative reports, “It was a very successful cut-over and I heard from a lot of staff that it was one of the most successful cut-overs they’ve been party to. Everyone really appreciated the training.”

One of the firm’s goals was to target the people who rarely attend trainings, making it either impossible for them to say they didn’t receive a training or that they couldn’t access a training.

“There are always people who won’t train no matter what you do. But by training everyone else and by offering so many opportunities for training, those people can’t dare say that they don’t know how to use the system. They’ll get shouted down by everybody else.”

If you need DMS rollout support, contact Savvy today.