If you live, work or frequent a major city you most likely walk a great deal and cross intersections on a regular basis. I am continually amazed, no matter which city I’m in, at how many individuals pay greater attention to the crosswalk indicator light than they do the cars speeding to the intersection. The light is just an indicator that it’s potentially safe to cross, it’s not a mechanism for stopping a car. Yet, for many, this is their personal best practice, often based on the group dynamic. It is a traditionally accepted option, but not the one that best guards their safety. It’s important to watch the lights, but it’s usually more important to watch the cars.

In litigation support, practice technology or law firm IT, we employ a wide range of solutions and products. However, many of these products end up largely untested, unchallenged and unimproved upon after their deployment with an organization. Unfortunately, and all too often, many firms select a solution only to realize that it might not fully meet their needs today or tomorrow. Abstractly, the eyes are on the light but could fail to observe any of the cars. Fortunately, there are multiple levels of organization-wide evaluation that can assist us in understanding which solutions to keep, how to plan for the future, and how best to maximize the safety of our existing resources. Read the rest of this entry »