Legal. Project Management. Competency Framework. A Global Standard for Professional Development in Legal. Executive Summary

Transcription

1 Legal Project Management Competency Framework A Global Standard for Professional Development in Legal Project Management Executive Summary

2 The BUSINESS EDUCATION INSTITUTE and the INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF LEGAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT present the LEGAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT COMPETENCY FRAMEWORK STAYING COMPETITIVE KEEPING IN THE GAME Maintaining the edge in legal services, delivering on market demands and assuring profit from delivering fixed fee legal services. With the global trend towards alternate fee arrangements and the need for law practices to balance technology, process efficiency and driving a winning culture, Legal Project Management practices have gained popularity in enabling a law firm s transformation. As Legal Project Managers become more common positons in the workplace, there is a need to define the role, responsibilities and competencies of the legal project practitioner. This extends to defining what constitutes high quality training, supported by a system that can validate a person s LPM knowledge and practical competency. Page 1 Todd Hutchison LPP IILPM Chairperson Page 1

3 Legal Project Management (LPM) is defined as the application of project management principles and practices to enhance the delivery of legal services. The improvement opportunities it brings to legal practices, including the ability to enable alternate fee arrangements (e.g., fixed price legal services), has created services. a high demand worldwide for project legal practitioners and quality legal processes. Legal Project Management (LPM) is defined as the application of project management principles and practices to enhance the delivery of legal The improvement opportunities it brings to legal practices, including the ability to enable alternate fee arrangements (e.g., fixed price legal services), has created a high demand worldwide for both legal project practitioners and quality legal All legal matters are projects, and those leading legal matters are in fact legal project practitioners. Applying a formal project management approach to legal services ensures a more reliable, efficient, consistent and standardised application of the discipline to benefit the processes. law firm, the practitioners, the team and the clients. This includes project practices that increase communications and stakeholder engagement. All legal matters are projects, and those leading legal matters are in fact legal project practitioners. Applying a more formal project management approach to legal services ensures increased reliability, efficiency, consistency and standardised application to the discipline. This brings benefits to the law firm, the practitioners, the legal matter project team and the clients. This includes implementing key project practices that increase team accountability, communication and stakeholder engagement. To enable this, the discipline of legal project management, as the term is being used worldwide, extends from solely project practices to also cover technology enablement, process improvement, and people leadership (team dynamics). The integration of all four of these elements represents the core foundation of LPM in practice. To enable this, the discipline of legal project management, as the term is being used worldwide, extends from solely project practices to also cover technology enablement, process improvement, and people leadership (team dynamics). The integration of all four of these elements represents the core foundation of LPM in practice. As a relatively new discipline for the legal profession, until now there have been no standards or competencies that guide LPM education. To develop LPM capabilities fast, law firms have needed to find LPM training providers, and assess whether those organisations are offering high quality education at an appropriate standard. In addition, legal service providers want to demonstrate to clients that their staff have been trained to a recognised level of competency. This extends to both certification and qualification pathways. The Business Education Institute, an Australian Government approved registered training organisation specialising in leadership and project management, and the newly established International Institute of Legal Project Management have worked with industry to develop the internationally-recognised Legal Project Management Competency Framework (LPMCF). This Framework provides a global standard for guiding the development of all LPM education programs. Page 2

4 The LPMCF was formed by researching: five key project management related competency frameworks published by global and national professional bodies; project management related competency frameworks published by government entities; project management related competency frameworks published by private sector entities having commercial models; project management competencies being defined in legal profession regulatory competencies; market evidence from legal firms of skills needed as defined in LPM job advertisements and position descriptions of actual legal project managers in the industry; and industry feedback from global LPM experts in nine different countries to provide the greatest insights to what LPM has become worldwide. This Framework recognises three key functions that require education: 1. the support function represented by those supporting legal matters; 2. the delivery function represented by those in the legal matter project team; and 3. the leadership function represented by those individuals leading the legal matter. Educational requirements for personnel at both the support and delivery function level was deemed to be largely the same (defined as a project associate role), with the leadership function requiring a high level of project manager expertise (defined as the project practitioner role). The Legal Project Management Competency Framework represents an international standard that sets out the competency skills for both the associate and practitioner levels, and provides a guideline for training curriculum for use by universities, colleges and private training providers for legal project management-based education, certification and qualifications. The educational competencies for each level were developed, and aligned to the Project Management Institute s ten knowledge areas. This enables legal project practitioner education to also be recognised as being consistent with other industry project management practitioners. This alignment to the broader project management discipline enables recognition by other worldwide project qualification programs, whilst the training context is still specific to a legal services environment. The key knowledge and competency areas for project associate level training were found to be: LPM Terminology; Benefits and Value of LPM; Legal Matter Life Cycle (Integration Management); Legal PM Team Roles; Page 3

5 Matter Scope Management; Matter Time Management; Matter Cost Management; Matter Human Resources Management; Matter Stakeholder Management; Matter Communication Management; and Scope Change Management. The project associate training requires at least 2 days of education to broadly cover the required competencies. The key knowledge and competency areas for a project practitioner level training (legal project practitioner) were found to be: LPM Terminology; Benefits and Value of LPM; Organisational Transformation Leadership (i.e., organisational change, technology deployment and process improvement); Legal Matter Life Cycle (Integration Management); Legal Practice PM Methodology Tools; Legal PM Team Roles and Responsibilities; Matter Scope Management; Matter Time Management; Matter Cost Management; Matter Human Resources Management; Matter Quality Management; Matter Communication Management; Matter Stakeholder Management; Matter Risk Management; Matter Procurement Management; Issues Management; Change Management; and Team Leadership. The project practitioner training is requiring at least 3 days of education (5 days preferred) to cover the required competencies. Based on these findings and needs, the International Institute of Legal Project Management (IILPM) was established as a global certifying body. This enables a single certification model for worldwide recognition, through the coordinated efforts of geographically spread IILPM Authorised Training Providers (ATPs) whose courses meet the competency requirements where the certification is issuable to their graduates. The IILPM is guided by a LPM Global Advisory Council formed of LPM experts from four different countries. The outcome of the IILPM certification pathway was to recognise two levels of IILPM approved LPM certification: 1. Legal Project Associate (LPA) certification for those who support and work within legal matter project teams; and 2. Legal Project Practitioner (LPP) certification for those leading legal matter projects. Page 4

6 Certification also needs to recognise any workplace experience required. Whilst LPA certification aligned training was deemed to be more effective where the person was working in a legal work environment, the LPP certification was confirmed to mandatorily require the person to have experience either as a: qualified and practicing lawyer; person employed within a law firm or legal environment; person working within, or in collaboration with, an internal legal counsel; or professional consultant or trainer working with law firms. The IILPM also confirmed an approved qualification model that acts as a benchmark to any university, college or a Government approved training entity developing LPM qualification training. Leveraging the existing and globally recognised Australian Qualification Framework (AQF) system, it was confirmed that qualifications would warrant both education and practice evidence to be awarded. The international recognised standing of AQF qualifications allowed for a readily accessible and globally proven competency approach. This allowed for LPM specific qualification-based education to be fasttracked through a blended model of face-to-face or online training with practical experience in the workplace. The IILPM initially accepted the following benchmark qualifications where the content was customised to a legal project management environment: 1. Certificate IV in Project Management Practice that is designed to focus on project team members (associates); and 2. Diploma of Project Management that is designed to focus on the project manager (practitioner). These qualifications require nominal engagement hours, and can be taught purely in an educational institute setting over 1-2 years or via a workplace blended learning approach. The Certificate IV level (1 year) or Diploma level (2 years) can be streamlined by an integrated model in the workplace as follows: Certificate IV level (360 nominal hours): requiring 3 days intensive training (21 hours), supported by a minimum of 48.5 days (339 hours) workplace application working in a legal matter project team; and Diploma level (480 nominal hours): requiring 5 days intensive training (35 hours), supported by a minimum of 64 days leading legal matters. These educational hours also correspond to other global models, such as the educational prerequisites for the Project Management Institute Page 5

7 (PMI) exams, being 21 hours for the team member level Certified Associate Project Management (CAPM ), and the 35 hours for the project manager level Project Management Professional (PMP ) certification. LPM KNOWLEDGE LEVEL ALIGNED CERTIFICATIONS ALIGNED QUALIFICATIONS The Framework s alignment of the three key functions is shown below in summarising the knowledge levels and the minimum training duration requirements for general knowledge and how it aligned to meeting the LPM certification and qualification needs. Understanding Applying (Associate) Leading (Practitioner) Legal Project Associate Legal Project Practitioner Certificate IV in Project Management Practice Diploma of Project Management Legal Matter Support Function X X Legal Matter Delivery Function X X X Legal Matter Leadership Function X X X X Minimum Days of Education Requiring Mandatory Workplace Evidence X X Evidence indicated a future of university based post graduate programs in legal project management, acknowledging that many academic institutes were already running legal project management specific units. The IILPM model developed allows for: standardised terminology and application of legal project management as a key discipline to enable consistent LPM worldwide educational quality standards; career progression for supporting legal matters, to working within legal matter teams, and leading legal matters; competency recognition through internationally recognised LPM certification at both the associate and practitioner levels; competency recognition through internationally recognised LPM qualifications at both the associate and practitioner levels; and validation methods for law firms to confirm a potential or current employee s understanding of, and competency in, the LPM discipline. The future benefits from this Framework include improving law firm practices through standardised and quality systems and processes, technology enablement, process improvement, and building a winning culture through the implementation of legal project management principles and practices. The future benefit to practitioners is the ability for structured professional development that leads to global certification and qualifications that can validate their knowledge and expertise. Page 6

8 Copyright 2017 International Institute of Legal Project Management Legal Project Associate, and Legal Project Practitioner, and the associated logos are trademarks of the International Institute of Legal Project Management.