Software Onboarding Best Practices

For most legal teams, partnering with a new technology vendor is a huge undertaking that goes far beyond the simple signing of a contract. Successfully adopting and onboarding a new technology requires healthy preparation, strategic change management strategies, and thorough technical practices.

Our recent webinar, “How to Successfully Onboard and Adopt Legal Technology,” hosted by Karen Tuschak of Spider Silk Innovative Solutions and Nicole Burch and Kirsten Hansen of Athennian, outlined best practices to ensure your new technology partnership is streamlined, effective, and destined for success.

Best Practice: Goal-Setting

Before taking on a new project, it behooves your organization to conduct extensive planning and consideration. A vital part of this stage is goal-setting. Ask your team, “What do you hope to achieve by implementing this?” and “How will this integrate with your other solutions/tools/processes?”

It is important to remember why you are choosing a new provider when goal setting. You are upgrading not to replace the status quo but to challenge and improve it. The sky is the limit with your goals and expectations, and ensure you communicate your most ambitious goals to your software partner.

Best Practice: Develop a Communication Plan

Because legal technology plays a critical role in the day-to-day workflow of your entire organization, your team must establish a communication plan that involves all of the necessary people.

Find out who the key stakeholders are on both sides of the relationship (i.e., vendor and client) and ensure that they’re informed of the change and have the tools and resources they need to make this project successful.

Ensure that your communication plan includes every team that this change will impact (e.g., billing, IT, etc.) Also, ensure that your plan accommodates all stakeholder's communication styles––whether that is through instructional videos, weekly meetings, written direction, etc. 

Best Practice: Consider This a People Project–Not Just a Technology Project

In the legal industry, technological change is slow, requiring this particular change to have a learning curve and a mindset shift. For many firms and in-house teams, manual processes have been the norm for decades, so ensuring your team’s needs are met and worries are assuaged, is integral to this process. 

More Best Practices 

For more best practices, you can access our on-demand webinar, “How to Successfully Adopt & Onboard Legal Technology.”
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