Ascertus blog

In the last year, Ascertus has seen a growing emphasis on best practice document management among specialist, mid-sized Intellectual Property (IP) law firms, suggesting that 2020 may have potentially accelerated digital transformation-led approaches in these organisations.

2020 will go down in history for (among other things) as the year when cloud adoption truly came into its own. Metaphorically speaking, with a ‘flick of a switch’, longstanding cyber security, business risk and user-led concerns more or less disappeared, making cloud application adoption a necessity.

In light of Brexit, it’s good news indeed that the EU has acknowledged the UK’s adequacy for data transfers to the nation as a third country, both under the GDPR and the Law Enforcement Directive. Whilst we remain optimistic that this adequacy will be ratified within the coming weeks there are two further hurdles to jump – a non-binding EDPB (European Data Protection Board) advisory and all Member States to agree with the EU’s decision.

In addition to smooth technical project implementation, successful projects painstakingly deliver against the pertinent elements of deep discovery including infrastructure health checks, project requirements and user needs; effective and meaningful communication on the promise of the ‘change’; user acceptance testing; and tailored, ongoing training.    

The importance of technology for business continuity has come to the fore like never before. With uncertainty reigning over the lockdown, many organisations are keenly going ahead with scheduled business-critical IT projects – all made possible by cloud technology.

COVID-19 has proven to be a real test of firms’ agility and ability to stay operational during this unprecedented lockdown. Thus far, for many firms, the focus has been on business continuity and internal re-organisation – ensuring employees have the tools they need to work from home, access to business information and such.

“We have an adoption problem”. I’ve heard these words many times over the years. What they should really be saying is “we have a critical problem – the entire project is failing!”. System adoption is not the only measure of project success, but it’s one of the most important. Retrospectively resolving a system adoption problem can be a huge challenge, and in such instances merely resorting to the original training programme is often not enough.

Effective User Acceptance Testing (UAT) is critical to ensuring that the new software and processes meet the needs, of both the business and individuals. It allows for any issues to be identified and fixed before the system goes live. Problems identified after go-live can have a serious negative impact on the business and user adoption.

The lack of effective communication is one of the top complaints from users when organisations implement change. It can be difficult to get right. The business leaders may understand why this change is necessary for the business, but the employees may not. Effective communication should promote the value of the upcoming change – for both to the organisation and the individuals – as well as deal with any concerns people may have. Done well, communication can lead to a smoother transition – improving engagement, positivity and adoption.

IT projects are often fraught with challenges, both technological/infrastructural and cultural. While the former is eventually resolved, it’s the latter type of challenge that has more far reaching implications. An IT project – regardless of how ‘game-changing’ for the business it promises to be on paper – without user adoption, it’s naught!

Here are six questions to ask your Project Manager, before embarking on an IT project: