 I'm turning it over at this point to Anna Steele and Jeff Hough. Thank you so much for coming out to do this presentation Howdy, thanks Thank you start and thanks Jeff for joining me today So today I start said we're talking about technology projects as teachable moments So how can we take the technology projects that we all do on a day-to-day basis and really learn from each other? Right? We all understand that there's value in this and we want to make sure that we are Opening up our community to make sure that folks are comfortable talking about those technology projects that may not have gone as planned So we'll get into that in a little bit Right so Anna Steele and Jeff Hough. We had our introductions. Jeff's on video apologies. I'm not on video Alright, so Why are we having this conversation today? Why does it matter? We as a community, I mean, I personally think that we don't talk about those Projects that don't go according to plan those projects that are that are failures enough We talk a lot about Where we succeed We talk a lot about kind of the quote-unquote intelligent failures But we very rarely in a public forum kind of sit down and say We goofed up and this is why and this is what went wrong and this is how I would do it over again if I could you know Obviously those conversations are probably having happening within each other's organizations and behind closed doors and in the privacy of a zoom Meeting but I think in the public space Jeff and I really want to encourage these conversations to start taking place So that's why we're here today We're kind of starting that conversation starting to talk about these projects and to really kind of get the dialogue going Yeah, and I just wanted to add that Something I really like about this community. I think makes it special is We want to be innovative and we want to do interesting things and and at the same time we're We want to be good stewards of the money that we're entrusted with so we want to balance that we want to be innovative We want to try new stuff. We want to take risks, but at the end of the day You know, we also want to make sure that we're making wise choices and a real good way to do that I think is to to know From each other what has gone wrong in other projects so we can we can spend our time well And so as people right we love blooper reels. We love outtakes from our favorite movies and TV shows You know, I'm pretty sure America's funniest home videos is still on cables Somewhere sometime right? This is something that that we like to to do and talk about in witness and while You know, obviously a lot more is at stake when we're talking about Federal money and technology projects and helping clients right rather than my dad's wipe out in a barefoot run It's still Your dad that's actually your dad barefoot in there, huh? Yeah, it is So I think that We we want to kind of treat it like that right and again while a lot more at stake and I wouldn't want to call it our Legal aid technology blooper reel right because frankly sometimes when these projects fail. It's just not funny It is still kind of a way how I want to kind of frame our conversation today thinking about kind of going through a number of types of projects and and talking about that so Yeah, and shout out to my dad for sharing some of his Water ski failures, which you'll see throughout the day So before we jump into the projects Let's kind of define. I wanted to kind of have a discussion about defining failure It means something different to everybody. I think right obviously when a project just doesn't happen Right that at its core is is a failure, but a project that ends up Happening and a tool that ends up getting built. I think can still have aspects of it that are considered a failure and I think that Since a lot of the technology projects that we work on are grant driven right that really sets the context for failure pretty Strictly in that like here are the numbers that we're expecting to hit right here are the milestones that we're expecting to hit Here are the amount of hours that we're spending potentially going to be spending on this project, right? And is it appropriate for us to be considering each one of those individual milestones that don't get checked, right? Is that project a failure? So I think kind of defining what makes a project a failure is really important And I just want to say thank you Anna for pulling this thing this topic together because it's so frustrating Now you see my gray hair It's very frustrating to go and hear about the initiatives that people are thinking about adopting and maybe I had a conversation Just last conference with somebody else about like oh actually that this thing sounds good, but here's what we experience in reality So I think it's a can only be helpful for us to share that the real deal stories with these Go ahead and and so getting into real deals, right? So I'm gonna take us through five different categories of projects and we're gonna talk about What those look like when they fail and why these types of projects fail? None of these are Specific projects while I was putting this together. I did not have specific projects in mind So if you're sitting into your desk being like, ah, she's talking about me. I'm not at least not directly I did, but Anna wouldn't let me actually talk about them I am so so these are all these are all names are changed and obfuscated to protect the innocent and the guilty Yes, yes, but with that being said, right? This is the last time that I want to give this presentation Where we're keeping it very general and very confidential I think the most value will be had in this type of conversation when One of us is either moderating a panel full of people who are excited to talk about their projects went wrong or Either of us are sitting on a panel that's being moderated by somebody else where we're talking about specific projects in which which we failed because I have and I think you know, I'm not going to speak for Jeff, but You know, we've all had things that have that have gone a little sideways so With that being said, let's talk about online intake, right? So and again These are not necessarily things that Are definitely considered failures in the context of this project, right? This is just what we could what a sales online intake project could look like right? So very low usage from your clients, right? You're not getting the clicks that you expect Or maybe you're getting the clicks that you expect, but you're not getting the Completion rate. It's a low completion rate, right? So people are starting it but not finishing it for some reason or another Failed online intake project could have completed online intakes But there's a significant number of errors in them and it ultimately takes your intake worker longer To intake that person than it would had they just initially called on the phone, right? One of the reasons that people move to online intake is to try and create efficiencies within Their intake system, right? So one may think that making their intake system ultimately less efficient is a failure of the tool that was supposed to make it more efficient And another one kind of is a low conversion rate to cases after fall with an intake worker, right? Someone may That may be why we wanted to do take this online intake project, right? That we're screening out people online so the person does not have to talk to them. Well In some cases, right? People may not be properly screened out and we still may be talking to them And we still may not be converting that case. So again May not be considered a project failure as a whole but maybe something that one may consider to be Not exactly meeting their expectations And so why does this happen with online intake, right? I think the big one is a lack of buy-in from the proper stakeholders within the organization If you're an organization that Has multiple offices And you've had one office that decides that they want to take on online intake alone But online intake, that means the link has to get buried on the website. It's not going to get the clicks, right? Lack of organic traffic to your website already, right? Or where you decide to post it If you're nervous about the flood of intakes that may come in as a result of online intake So you take your online intake link and you hide it in a deep corner of your website You're going to get low usage and then you're not going to be able to collect the data Not only are you not going to be able to serve those clients But you're not going to be able to collect the data to make your online intake better ultimately I want to hear somebody tell that story, you know, right? We're all people are always worried about the flood I do seem to recall in the very early days in Washington state They felt like it was it was a lot like the volume went from zero to a lot But I haven't heard I haven't heard a story yet where somebody's like we spun up online intake It was this giant flood and And now we think it's a terrible idea So, you know, would that we would have that problem? I wonder how many have failed because everybody got nervous and buried it and didn't think that they were going to have to publicize and you know The existence of this instead of thinking that way around Exactly, exactly and Yeah, for sure And I think that the the last kind of why Online intake projects potentially fail and I'm definitely not the first one to say this, right? But the lack of user testing user-centered design, you know, making sure that it is Presented in a way that makes sense to the user users. You're looking at plain language, right? Things like that if There's all sorts of data around this and we're not going to get into this on the call today But just wanted to highlight that Jeff anything else to add on online intake Yeah, I think I have an opinion about why some of what what some failures look like which is a Lot of people get nervous You're gonna publish this thing to the world and then it becomes a really large committee of people Doing design and I think you there's a real chance of it not being plain language Not being very navigable And being difficult to maintain if there's too many cooks in the kitchen This is one of those where I think a well-finished online intake interview as a piece of art and so If there isn't if there isn't a head artist the head architect or a head chef who's who's become Passionate about it because they think oh, what if somebody has a small estate that's under $20,000 but they inherited it five years before or it's timed out and they start thinking of those sort of scenarios and how to To to deal with that. I think that's up So somebody needs to have the I think I think it helps to have somebody with the artist who's invested with the artistic Sort of sense of how it should flow and the passion to to drive it into something that it's it is It's a work of art. It's a it should be a beautiful thing Absolutely, and I think the exact same thing applies to our next one. What we're looking at which is document assembly So I think that a failed document assembly project can look somewhat similar to an online intake project in the In the what it looks like right low adoption The interesting thing about document assembly though is that doesn't need to just mean low adoption with clients, right? A lot of people use document assembly projects internally And so you can have a lot lack lack of adoption by the advocates who you designed the document assembly forms for There can be a low acceptance rate by the courts, right? If you're creating this document assembly for clients to use and then they take their Packets to file and the courts aren't accepting them, right? There's been some sort of breakdown there And then while this may not be something that you can say is at launch regarding whether the project is success or failure, but the ones that lack updating and maintenance right the law changes and you know, Jeff was saying that you have to have somebody who Has that sense of ownership that doesn't end when the project ends either and I think that's a big and I think and you know Again, no breaking news here, but I think that that's a big a big issue within the community when it comes to Yep, and there's been you know There's been a lot of efforts to do document assembly I can think of one that I may spend a lot of time on that basically no one no one adopted Sorry Someone's calling me So why these so why these Document assembly projects can fail right be beyond what what Jeff and I were just talking about You know the lack again like online and take the lack of buy-in from the right people You know that court piece not having the right stakeholders at the table You want to make sure that you have at internal advocates who are comfortable with this You want to make sure you have external parties who are comfortable with this at the table? and Jeff with if you want to talk a little bit about with document assembly the lack of testing prior to selecting the platform Yeah, so Online intake I know we're avoiding kind of pointing out where those failures are But is there a project out there that you would say really epitomizes that? Work of art as an online intake one that you think has done a good job And then you're happy to kind of show off as that work of art Well for that I've made personally not the moment but You know, I think I think that was something that I helped with with the New York City consumer help finder is it is it is really succinct like it's intentionally succinct It was some people who did do consumer work down in New York City at that It's at NYC help finder org or NY help finder org either one there was some unity of of Mostly in being trim and another example. I think the a to jay the a to jay project in New York It's also happened to be in New York. I Don't agree with everything that my friends Rochelle and In the court system did with their DIY project in New York But there's there's unity if you look at any of their interviews. There's similarity there because it's the same author Primarily who worked on those across all the interviews And I think any you may just make some other decisions but I think the DIY ones in New York are somebody who's focused on on Because the consistency across interviews to and really thought through all the pieces um, so Anything else on the document assembly drip? Yeah, well, I know we're gonna go over time. Whatever Yeah, so platforms, you know these I think it's worth it would be wonderful if all these projects were structured a bit more So you could go and do Real-life testing, you know to do your pre-built testing because you may discover That's like so hot-dogs is super complicated and can do anything. It's also got a learning curve How many people in your on your staff are gonna learn to be experts in hot-dogs? Not so many it may be that you'd have way more way better sustainability and adoption with a much simpler platform like using a to jay author and its back end or using Doc assemble or one of those but if you don't if you haven't tried to take, you know Your most complex form and spend some actual time Trying to build out in it. You don't really know what those things are what those hurdles are going to be so the It'd be really nice to have that and and I think for all these products You have to be willing Unfortunately have to make all these decisions up front and we don't really have much of a structure for this is the time During which we do proof of concepts on multiple platforms figure out which one's gonna work Yeah, and that I think that that's definitely not exclusive to document assembly either and that's gonna come that's gonna be a theme today for sure Next type of project we're gonna look at is our pro bono collaboration projects, right these Are especially with the LSEp biff grants right we're starting to see a lot more pro bono projects come up many of which involve the use of technology Because it makes a lot of sense, right? And so when I'm talking about pro bono collaboration I'm talking about pro se clinics. I'm talking about kind of the urban rural partnerships. I'm talking about posting pro bono opportunities on your website or on a Main kind of website where you can where pro bono attorneys can pick up cases so that's what I'm talking about when I'm talking about pro bono collaboration and So what is a failed pro bono collaboration technology project look like? Services to clients aren't increasing right? We're doing this with the idea that we're gonna be able to serve more people and we're actually not we're just creating a Administrative headache for people and not serving more clients right that I would probably consider something like that to be a failed project Your internal attorneys are not referring cases out to whatever pro bono project you have created and we'll talk a little bit more Why that could happen here in a sec? There's little to no private attorney interest right you've created this Platform or you've created this clinic or you've created this model and you can't get private attorneys involved, which means The service that you're that you wanted to provide isn't going to be provided or there's low pro private attorney retention, right? so you said that you want to do this you have some pro bono's involved, but you can't keep those pro bono's involved and I think why we see some of these issues is With a with pro bono projects There's a lot of replication which is great, and we should definitely be encouraging replication, but with pro bono projects There's there are many many many more kind of variables involved than your standard technology projects because you're dealing with that outside variable of pro bono attorney involvement and So we can't just be blindly replicating pro bono projects We really have to think through how your pro bono environment would Accept or reject the concepts behind that project Jeff yeah, and this one this one I think this area suffers more than some of the other ones with this and I think it's because you get Lawyers who move in the corporate world, right? Who I think frankly just kind of presume that the technology in legal aid is way behind and maybe presume You know benevolent benevolently presume that there aren't folks like the people on this call who've thought really hard already About how to solve these problems and so they get excited about you know Connecting different and they come in with ideas not not with not thinking that there's a whole tapestry to consider first before Before launching off with it a new wrinkle and it's happened over and over and over again We're especially in this space. I feel like you know, you can make the decision that we need another X You know we need another something That's different, but at least you know, I I think I think how what failure looks like in this space is Frankly, there's likely to be sort of a whisper campaign. I'm like, you know, they're doing exactly what platform X Y and Z do I'm not really sure why we need to you know, put time and resources towards Another platform. I think I think it kind of comes out in the wash eventually. So some I'm right. I called Marco Brian was like hey mark I just read that somebody did this for the first time in the world Did you know that because I've heard of this thing called proponent and that's you Like that doesn't mean you can't that doesn't mean we can't all have innovative projects or projects that are do the same thing in a different way But I think it's it's it's got doom written all over it if the community has already worked hard on some other platforms that are working for them and then suddenly Manna, you know manna from heaven. Look, here's a new tool. It's different. I Think you guys sit on a really good point Especially with the public-private Partnership a lot of times people will jump in offer services be willing to throw up a website or do something Without surveying the landscape of what's out there. What type of advice do you have for people doing that environmental scan? Where should they go? What should they look for? How do they avoid the massive duplication of very some of these even simple projects? But don't have any like community support or background because they're duplicating features that are already out there in the community Well, a great thing is even though they may not always all get along or maybe even consider themselves sort of competitors for services There's so many different the pro bono coordinators in In in the bar association will have have a pro bono program Like those people know what projects exist if you literally just called three people the biggest legal aid program in your area I'm gonna say what do y'all do for pro bono? What kind of technology tools you are using the bar association and and one of the Other partners me. I think you'd find they'd tell you who you need to talk to and it's so worth it Even if you disagree with everything all those people told you because you're sure that a virtual reality Headset version of a meeting with a lawyer is gonna be the thing tomorrow Those people all know what's been tried what failed who put the kibosh on it if they did So it's it's honestly. It's mostly picking up the phone and or buying me a beer at a conference And the one last thing that I want to add to the pro bono piece is your Expectation setting and this is something that I personally ran into when running a prosa clinic is We like to use the whole this is so easy You can come on your lunch break and spend an hour at this clinic and you can help five people during this hour We like to use that or you can help people from your fuzzy bunny slippers at home After hours like me like to use those as carrots with pro bono attorneys But if that's the expectation we're setting then why are we expecting them to? Come back to another clinic right? Why are we expecting them to? Put five hours into something that they have five hours to give But maybe only spend you know half an hour on it because I have set this expectation It's like this is a quick and easy thing that you can do on your lunch break and still be helping people, right? So I think it's really important that if we're gonna use that that as a carrot for the pro bono community to get involved in our projects that We make sure that we're setting the expectations that like we're still expecting You to work at the top of your practice just because you're doing so in your bunny slippers, so I think that that's Something to consider especially with with the technology projects where the Oversight may not be as intensive as it was if someone was working a case on site. I've got slippers on right now And I have worked very hard Next one Document management systems so People are Really making we're starting to see this a lot. I know it just tech. This is a request that we get a lot I know Jeff at legal server people are asking you about document management all the time. I'm sure and You know these projects can be super successful but they they can also have some bumps just like the other ones that we've been talking about and You know, what is a failed document management project look like like everything else lack of usage Anger and frustration from staff right when you're making a change to the way that somebody does their work on a day-to-day basis And people are mad at you Something has gone wrong right and we can't just say well All the people who are mad at me are the people who should have retired 10 years ago anyway, so it doesn't matter right that's You have failed somewhere along the way if that's really your your honest belief right of course we've all said that at one point or another but if that's really truly your honest belief there's been some sort of oversight and One of the most dangerous Failures of a document management project is secret non-compliance Right, so if if you roll this out and this is the expectation and you're supposed to be saving things To within the document management system or tool and I've decided that I don't like that tool so I've saved everything I'm saving everything on my desktop, but I haven't told anybody that I'm doing that because I know that I'm not supposed to be doing it and then my laptop crashes and Now I have no documents and when I go to it and tell them they're like well isn't everything in the document management system They're like no, so and and there's right that is There was some sort of failure there right whether it's training or support or buy-in right if you're getting that secret non-compliance There's some sort of some sort of failure there. So what causes a break down the document management project? And I know Jackie had some thoughts about this. Oh Yeah, yeah, I know I would The secret non-compliance you and I talked about this before a long time ago the ABA published a Tech they to publish it every year, but it's kind of not easy to get your hands on it's expensive You have to prove your nonprofit that you can get it But they do this huge tech survey and one of them it was back when the cloud was new It said, you know, how many the percentage of I think medium-sized firms. I'm gonna mess up the statistics. It was something like 30% of them were offering some sort of cloud-based document storage for their For their staff and then in the survey of the staff they asked, you know What percentage of people who worked on medium-sized firms were actually using them? We're using cloud-based document storage and it was like 70% So, you know, people were finding a path around the thing that was frustrating and I'll just say about the document management This is one of those things that like it is a good idea. We know it's a good idea. We know it can save time And it runs right up against human behavior Which humans just when you put your socks in your drawer You don't go grab a label and stick a label on each stock that like black brown Multicolor you just don't do it like you're in a hurry. You want to get this task done to get on to something else And so if it relies on tagging or if it relies on people to do something that's really unnatural for them to do in a hurry You know, it's just not gonna work and so There's time is when you have something that's really good. We you know it can save time and and Maybe we haven't taken into account How big of a deal it is to change human behavior, especially in a stressful situation where they're trying to get something done and move on to something Yeah, Jeff here some really important points here One is that your document management system should not add extra transactional costs for people If it does they'll see it as a burden and not helpful Even if it saves them time because every time they have to take an action Then they'll feel like their time is being sucked away from them Additionally, the one of the bigger failures around the systems that have kind of a communal space Is lack of a community manager? You can't just build this great technology and expect everybody to start throwing stuff in and it to run itself And by community manager, I don't mean you take somebody and throw it on top of their regular workload and say hey Congratulations, you're excited about this you get to do this five hours a week on top of your regular hours You actually have to dedicate someone to work on those platforms Or create a system that that is search-based That takes where people automatically put stuff and comes up with relevant answers. It's one of the two I totally agree. That's why I tell everyone you have to have a gardener and I think I think if you don't have that You I like the way you said that right? It's the the benefits have to be so obvious that people think it's worth changing a little bit how they do Sorry No, no, please This is all this is great And the one piece that I just want to add to this and again, I think this is a common thread among Any project but not fully understanding your current practices and Where they're working and where they're not working prior to this building out a new tool so if you decide to move into a into SharePoint or a Enterprise level document management tool and you don't know how attorneys are actually thinking about the way that they want to be organizing their documents and You're just replicating exactly how your local file storage looks It's it's gonna have the same problems as your local file storage, right? So I think that really understanding the processes and practices Prior to to jumping in the defend is really important with this one I'm gonna make a pitch by the way If you've done as wildly successful document management system for real like everybody's using it Everybody loves it and you're happy. I really would like to hear hear about it. So please contact Anna or a sartan And I'd like to hear how went because now we're we're bumping up against all the different TM s's and I'd love to hear Jeff tell us about the magic gizmo The magic gizmo. So if this is real like this happens. There are apps There are platforms that do something that's just so cool That you you really want to bring that that new feature or tool and and make it work for you and sometimes it does but I think the That the failure looks something like this. So you've gone to a Webinar or a training or a conference or something and someone gotten up and given a really good presentation about why about this This very focused tool and what it's gonna do and so you bring that enthusiasm back and maybe there's dynamic people who who work on that and and And and then you sort of square peg around hold it, right? So you bring back and it's not a perfect fit for what we need Maybe our computers are a little slow. Maybe they're not even gonna actually be able to use this Maybe maybe our network isn't sufficient to to handle what this needs and then What happens is you the the failure is is that When you actually go try to implement it You find that you keep pointing to people pointing out to people how this could work and it doesn't work in reality So you have At the end of day you're left with yes There's this this new tool or feature, but that staff was over oversold, right? So they think it's gonna solve 15 problems and it sort of solves one Or maybe you know the impressiveness that it had for you just doesn't translate into other efforts And so one of the things that I think the failure in this Vane looks like one of the ways the characteristics is that people who feel like they have a lot of other Priorities for things they would like you to work on and problems you'd like to solve This is a really dangerous thing I think for our whole our whole community is that there are folks who are just you know They're doing a side hearings every day. They're doing Bankruptcies are going into family port and what they want they want their paper file to be neatly organized They want the notes to be good. They want somebody to help them with follow-up and they they want they want to win their cases and Now the tech person has delivered to them some app that's supposed to do something And that's not what they need it. And so I think one of the real dangers here is that one of the the earmarks of failure is that people who Care about our mission just as much as you do are saying We need this we don't need to be we shouldn't be spending this time effort and treasure on on shiny things and for some folks that ends up ends up putting a blanket over other technology initiatives all because maybe we got enamored with with the magic gizmo And I think that being said though, I think and I think that that you are Very much on track there. I think that we also can't There's always going to be kind of that feedback right when We're spending when we as the technologists and the innovators are spending money on something Even if it is successful and even if it is doing its job and doing it well and making our lives the lives of our clients better Right there's still going to be those people who don't understand why we're spending money on the tech and not another attorney So I think it's kind of with the magic gizmo piece. It's kind of there's a bit. There's a little bit of a balance there Yeah, we all agree right I remember I remember when there was there was a certain office that only one computer had access to email And it was why do we need that and then it was voicemail? Why do we why would we want people to leave messages for us directly? There's no paper trail of what they said to us and so clearly there's times when you know and oh my gosh Hosted hosted phone systems. Why would we do that? So, you know, some of these things are good ideas that have to happen but if if we don't talk about the risks and we don't we don't call out the limitations then It's maybe is a confirmation bias for folks that oh those tech folks just see something new and then they spend time in effort I think the thing that I've seen in some of the late organizations that has helped with that is when they Reimagined a vision as serving more than just the clients who make it through the overcrowded Intake or hotline hours when they're open that there are tens of thousands Clients or eligible clients that need services in other ways and when they view a broader community mission There are some ways that technology can serve people 24 hours a day or they can't make it through To an attorney and that broader mission helps them evaluate technology in a different way. I See someone asked for a specific example. So I'll give you one that I'll give you one What about remember video conferencing right what we're doing right now and what now I do literally every single day there was a time when Remember way way back when when it was it was pretty weak The audio was mediocre people didn't really think folks are gonna want to communicate this way And I guarantee I know for sure around the country. There were video conferencing stations Wealed into various offices in different places and the people who said this is the future You know that point to like remember the hud sucker proxy with the the circle and he's like this People point to it said this is gonna mean we can meet with clients who have difficulty getting out of the house This is gonna mean we can do conferencing and and and in some cases That probably became just didn't happen right the usefulness was low Somebody probably grumbled every time they passed that expensive piece of equipment And yet this is like getting the nuance that Anna was trying to make sure we hit on Video conferencing is the thing it was the future. I suppose if someone the mitigation approach is to say You know, we're experimenting. This is where things are going We're gonna need to build the use of this tool over time and here's how you use it And here's and here's how you get a cup get a couple of people excited about actually Adopting that the new technology Yeah, and on video conferencing right like so I am I don't think Well, I have I had a first or second generation iPod, but I'm not an Apple user I don't love Apple products. Sorry But I give them so much credit for the video conferencing Revolution because once people started FaceTiming everybody All and having that at the click of a button all of a sudden people are okay video conferencing at work It was it happened like overnight where you have people who are incredibly resistant to To video conferencing in a professional setting and then all of a sudden they're video conferencing everybody and their mother And then they do it at work because that's the natural thing to do and so I think that Sometimes you just got to wait for that like cultural bump And know that all along that you were right And you'll have it I mean somebody's gonna show you an AI bot that's gonna it looks like magic in the one little the narrow Piece that it works on and maybe it can be if that fits your model really well And you understand what the limitation bar and and I think and I think we Express that and also say that it's kind of new and it's not gonna be something that works out of the box every day You know with some of what we want to I make magic gizmos. I want want people to use them All right, so let's talk about some of the common threads here, right? We've touched on a lot of these types of projects We've touched on why they fail, but let's kind of take a step back and really look into that, right? So lack of momentum I think is a big one that could apply to any of these projects We all wear a number of different hats You know many of the Technologists in our space are also litigators are also supervisors are also executive directors And so it can be very very challenging to keep up momentum on projects and You know we all we end up working for the deadline working for the milestone Right, so a month before the deadline. It's full steam ahead, but the six months prior. We're just kind of You know at a low simmer, right? So if you don't keep that momentum up and you don't keep that excitement up within the organization Or within your project team Then you're going to have I Would say I don't I don't think that that's something that is going to cause failure Right out of the box, but I think that there is a higher or definitely a higher chance of failure if there's a lack of momentum around your project Along the same lines a lack of support. I think when Jeff and I were talking about this presentation together We talked about the kind of 11th hour veto of the project Jeff I don't know if you want to touch on that. I do I do before everybody start thinking about what they're doing next It's really important. I can't tell you how many times I've been involved in something where we thought we we thought we had But we thought we had the blessing from everybody who needed needed to bless it and then Really near the delivery of the project somebody says oh but it doesn't have this feature or it doesn't do this thing and and Suddenly really dramatically impacts the the delivery or you know in with document assembly it could be If it's not a standard form it could be that one of the major courts in your area Won't accept that form that there and this happens We only accept a photocopied PDF of the official PDF that we deliver and unless you started at the beginning Way back when with the lobbying on that and then sometimes it's bosses. This doesn't get publicized We don't talk about this, but there's times when there's a top-level boss is just like we can't do this particular thing because it steps on the toes of a neighbor or I don't we had there was one project that was involved in where one of the partners felt that the way Using it in it involved the transmission of data and just said I don't believe that that's ethical You know, I don't think that the way that data is managed and stored Leaves it in my control. So we're not doing it. It's just yeah And I show you time about how to avoid that whatever. I'm gonna anyway, so no The This 11th hour veto, we've got to make sure that all those people I think that's part of running up the flagpole like very early sharing with Everyone you can here. Hey, this is what we're gonna do This is basically how it's gonna work and I hate doing that because you usually get a long list of here's what I think the problem is with your project or you know, and you know Not very helpful ideas from people who don't understand what it's about and like I've got a vision just shut up And let me run with it and then I'll show you and that run run up the flagpole them to search for Eventual vetoes is what I'm getting at to avoid that. Yep. Yep, and I think you know, unfortunately Support in this situation can also mean monetary right if you don't have the grant Money or the you know, it's super secret money tucked in the back of your software for that particular project and it then It may not work out and you have to be realistic about that at the beginning right about what the funds are What how much how much money and how many resources it's really gonna take to get to get done because you really want to do it right and you know, if you don't have the support whether it's resource support or management support Then find but but you do think the project is a good idea and the people around you think the project is generally a Good idea, right? Feel free to break that project into pieces Right and and get through step one with what you have and and then use step one and two to then create a great Explanation and grant application and presentation as to why you should should take it to step three Next one here misalignment of expectations this again cuts many many many different ways I think that there can be a misalignment of expectations between Individuals working on the project together there can be a misalignment of expectations between a vendor and the The organization between the funder in the organization between funders and vendors between Organizations and clients between vendors and clients right there can be there's so many places where expectations can get misaligned and this ties into the next one to So that's poor communication right but It's so important to get this the expectations out up front in your project and always be checking back to them Right. Yeah, you know This is my plan. Are we hitting it? Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, I just wanted to add that it's a trendy It's a trendy thing. I don't know if you've done user stories before but Some of these buzzwords make me crazy, but I can't think of a better way to have people early on If I'm a user doing x thing, I want y y thing is gonna happen those sort of like plain language Here I'm a user doing x thing y thing is gonna happen automatically within four seconds or Those having a list of those early on and getting them agreed to can really help and I but at the same time I'm also in favor of the old school Specs, you know specifications of what something is gonna do provided that you build in Refinement because the other way I've seen Expectations get misaligned is there are people who think that a project isn't done until one person is a hundred and twelve percent satisfied with every detail and you know, that's gonna make all partners crazy because There one of the expectations has to be that what you deliver is going to be different than what you imagined in the beginning because you you're gonna run into Technological hurdles or you're gonna your user testing is gonna tell you that something needs to be different Or something you thought was going to be easy Turns out, you know like SMS literally doesn't have in its specification the idea that it knows it's a reply to us to a particular message You can't change the universe because that's what you desire in your project and so I think spelling out user stories Specs and then also building in the fact that the expectations are gonna have to change based on user testing and technology technological reality for sure and misalignment of Expectations becomes even worse when there's poor communication, right? If if you are not aligned wasn't listening. What? When you are not aligning your expectations properly and and you're not communicating well forget about it, right? You're gonna end up It's that like classic Comic that I see everywhere Where people always use on like project management and agile presentations with the tire swing Where like your expectation is one thing this is what you think you're getting this with the client things are getting this Is what you actually get right that whole idea and that's just made it ten times worse by poor communication So make sure you have a good communication plan with all of your stakeholders in your project, right? overcommunicate I know that we all get six million emails a day and a six million and first email is not what we are overly excited about but I think that it's really really important to keep your communication Solid else to really opening yourself up to potential failure and Kind of the last common thread here and Jeff got into this earlier it's just a lack of love for your project and for the The vendors that you're working with and for the we're not asking for everybody to get along perfectly But you really need somebody you really need that champion that project needs to have a champion That project needs to have somebody who's willing to be there in the project through thick and thin and really get it to Yeah, and it's also I I think I think it We're all of all of us working together as humans also I think should start from the position especially in this space that we're all trying to do good work and so and do good things and so the Um The approach nobody wants to work on a project nobody wants to be part of your test group Nobody wants to adopt your technology if if there's a And I look I'm guilty of it. You people are all behind you catch up You've got to do this as opposed to I care about the problem You're having I care about helping you try to solve it And I have I have passion for this project and so that I'm you know turn I know this is very nebulous, but turning those If everybody feels like what they're working on is a project where you've got a big list and you're but and you want to tell them It's up and you're gonna tell everybody else how they're how they need to behave And how they need to meet your needs like that's not everybody involved in the project from the user to your partners To the end users all have a need to fulfill And if you are putting love in you're listening to To that need and you're trying to address that need not merely impose your vision of how this thing should go and when it should be Done and exactly what details are like and then hopefully your love for the project is infectious and other people love what it does I can't believe I'm going back to SMS. I did not love SMS when we first built it in legal server I was like SMS is gonna be gone in a year. We're gonna be all you'd be using apps SMS is is a technology of yesterday But you know it deep does need stuff that love that our clients had for it became infectious and now Even in internally when we build something new on top of SMS when we solve another problem or even just improve reminders that Everybody has a good feeling about that because we know instantly people like this tool They're gonna use it and and when they tell us about how it has effects on how they deal with with folks So, you know share the love share the love All right, so what's next right so How do we so we've talked about all of these projects, right? We've talked about how they fail and why they fail But how do we avoid that right and how do we how do we make sure that? We're prepared if a project is going down a track. That's that's not looking not looking right Yeah, Jeff you want to start well people are gonna bail so I'm gonna give the real quick version We got to be we need to get to a point Culturally where we have pre-build testing and we're allowed to to not pick your platform your tool or your final specs until after you've had a chance to try different things Let's let's get in there and and and build prototypes before we commit to something because here's here's the real truth is we all get embarrassed and or forced by you know political reality to to put a sunny face on something that didn't go well when four weeks in the project you realize that that You know should have chosen a different platform or a different approach So I think that's my that's the number one thing I would say dad and and having a conversation You know if it has to be privately over the phone or over a beer with somebody who's done something similar to get the straight scoop Those are my those are my two major ones Anna Yeah, and I think that those especially the pre-project kind of testing and planning and process analysis and all of that is wildly important because you find those red you identify those red flags early instead of you know six twelve eighteen months into your project and I think that that all also plays into Assessing assessing the risk going into a project right and trying to figure out Where there's where there is room for failure and making sure that it's being addressed Early and right out of the gate as opposed to being surprised what if it sneaks up on you Yeah, you know people have talked about risk assessments for a long time I always thought of it as something really boring like what an insurance person would say If you just think of it as a I'm a recent convert I think if you just think of it as a as a What are the things that could go wrong? you know and and Have I it's kind of a fun creative process like what what could what are the points of failure that I need to look out for? And then one nice thing about risk assessments is the person who's real skeptical about your project if they see you're the risk They're thinking of in your list and they feel heard Yes, definitely and that goes back to the community that piece right there is a thread that goes goes throughout this as well So wrapping things up right now. I don't know my last picture didn't show So what if we fail? right the first one of the things I want you to do is Email me Call me. I want you to be in my blooper reel Like I want you to be sitting up here with with Jeff and I talking about it Like I or call somebody to talk about it You know make it make it known. I mean, you know, it's hard when you have to report back to a funder And you know, we all find the silver linings in our failed projects To report and we report back on those silver linings instead of the fact that I just flat out failed And it was terrible and I had one client use this tool in six months and and I'm sorry, but I tried right like it's Talk about it. And that's you know, that's That's the reason that I wanted to put this together today And that's the reason that I asked Jeff to be here today is that I really just I really just want us to talk about it more and not be and not be Scared to say to contact a funder midway through a project and say listen, this is going down a path that that isn't gonna go well and you know Either like let's talk about how to make this work or I mean if maybe I'll give you your money back But it means like So I can stop the project and pull the plug right because it's just not gonna make sense And we need to be willing to like have those hard conversations with each other with our funders And the like and and bosses and and I so so and I just made an ask and I agree I promise if we do a follow-up of this one, I'll bring I'll get the permissions. I need and I'll bring an actual failure From from here my time at legal server and and and share that and I think if other folks would I think I think that it's a conversation that well, and I know it's happened Yeah, don't want to duplicate what anybody else is doing anywhere else, but I'm Very happy to do that All right. I think that's That's all we have Sorry, do you have anything else to add any questions? Definitely like to open it up in case people have any questions One thing that I would like to add on the failure side and I've seen this with way too many projects recently and And it's been going on for years is the lack of inclusion for accessibility testing and actually using individuals with disabilities from professional organizations if you are putting together a project and you've got a budget Over a hundred thousand dollars. You should have accessibility testing from the beginning of that project You don't want to get halfway into that project or finish that project and then find out that individuals with Disabilities have been left out of that similarly with court systems, I've often seen unrepresented litigants not at the table as a stakeholder in Washington State we designed a Superior court case management system that had no way for an unrepresented litigant to log in and see their own case file they had to have a bar number and it took 18 months and 20 meetings of people making way too much money to fix that simple bug or They didn't even see it as a bug at the time because they didn't really they didn't see Unrepresented litigants, which is 75% of people in family law cases as essential stakeholders to be brought to the table Get people that are most disadvantaged in the current system and Include them Early and often in the process And Somebody here just made a comment similarly include people with cognitive disabilities As part of that so for example W3C standards doesn't have spell suggest But as somebody who's extremely dyslexic having that makes your product so much more usable But also available to somebody like myself with dyslexia. So consider though a Diverse group of stakeholders from the beginning and use them as actual testers Thanks, yeah, we we forgot to mention plain language as well, which is I think Maria Maria Midland set is the one who convinced me, you know, if if you said it, but nobody understood it You didn't say it, you know, you didn't communicate it and I think you're you're right that those all of all those those Are good points and I'm really trying to come around to Thinking of the the person who has the hardest time dealing with your technology as, you know At not as the lowest common denominator But as the highest expression of your skill and art is that you've made it so well that someone doesn't have to you know be a digital native or Have a lawyer's vocabulary or have any of those other things that you wish every user had when they step into your system and use it that That's that's a that success Yeah, there's there's another good comment here in the question section which is to consider the term Readability also over plain language because it's it's a lot more than just the language used It's the way that it's structured on the page. It's using visualizations. It's using bullet points that whole Presentation of it is is more than just getting rid of that terrible jargon that we're all taught is useful in law school That actually makes it more difficult for our clients Yeah, I agree I agree and Andy can't make anything perfect. I'm not I'm not disagreeing with anything you're saying at all I think that where I would starting with the accessibility and Readability plain language and all of the other than thinking about other languages and those things have to be part of the plan And I think it's okay to have that as part of the plan that is You know you don't that is part of part of your midstream or your refinement process and It's also, you know, there's also a case that if you get together you talk about you could make a List of requirements. It's so long. Nobody can remember what you're building at some point right And to tie that into your project success right be like I am not considering this project to be a success until You know, it passes these readability and accessibility standards and like that's a tall order, but it's an important one Well, and I mean guess what there's so far are we the folks we work with say on some of them It's an interesting thing about which project you choose right? You can get into there's there's a whole bunch of ethics involved in which projects you choose and what you decide is important and what that means for you and There are mobile devices are still really problematic for accessibility definitely whole another webinar Well, thank you guys for coming out and speaking today We greatly appreciate it and we should have this video up here within the next week on our YouTube channel Please feel free to reach out to you the presenters as their emails are there if you've got any further follow-up questions Our next webinar coming up is on Dock assemble and it's an update on how that systems working new features that have been added the date for that Webinar is September 17th 10 a.m. Pacific time so same time as today and as always it is free Enjoy yourself and have a wonderful weekend come up here. Thanks Anna. Thanks start for organizing