John Grant talks about how legal teams can adopt Agile and Kanban project management methodologies to optimize workflows, correct bottlenecks and increase client satisfaction. John is a lawyer and the founder of The Agile Attorney consultancy.
As John explains, the traditional project management method is waterfall. A technique often used by technology companies, involving a sequential approach where each stage is dependent on the completion of the previous one.
But John is a proponent of the newer, Agile methodology, which emerged from the software development community. It is a flexible approach where tasks are broken down into small increments with minimal planning, and processes are iterative. Agile is one of John's favorites because he believes it is well suited for legal work.
John also talks about the value of a Kanban board, a visual tool used to manage work at various stages of a process. It typically includes columns such as "To Do," "Doing," and "Done".
So why is he so into project management methodologies? Because despite coming from a long line of lawyers, before he went to law school, he first worked in tech.