On Project Management and Redskins Fans
I wanted to finish the "The State of eDiscovery in Delaware series before moving on to other subjects, but I've found it difficult (there's so many meaty issues to discuss) and finally cracked. Please indulge this short diversion.
First, a warm and fuzzy congratulations to Gabe Acevedo, author of Gabe's Guide to the e-Discovery Universe, for being invited to regularly contribute to the excellent EDD Update blog. Do yourself a favor and take a look at Gabe's first contribution. He'll be a great addition to EDD Update. I love reading Gabe's posts for his creativity and humor. (Want proof? Take a look at the title of his post announcing the launch of this blog.) Congrats Gabe! [UPDATE: I forgot to mention, I first found Gabe on Twitter (@GabeAcevedo) where you can follow him too. Also look for me on Twitter (@cspizzirri).]
Second reason for breaking the series: project management. "Of course," you say, "what lawyer wouldn't be excited about project management?" Well, only a few of us geeky types who like workflows and metric and statistics and whatnot, but that will change. There's a growing recognition of the importance of incorporating project management and other related techniques into the eDiscovery process to help control costs and reduce risks. (See The Sedona Conference® Commentary on Achieving Quality in the E-Discovery Process [related blog posts here and here] or EDRM's Evergreen/Project Management project.)
I began applying these techniques to our internal eDiscovery processes at Morris James several months ago and took up Six Sigma—with the guidance of a master black belt, mind you—more recently. You can expect to read about this topic here often and in more depth, but, in the meantime, take a look at Paul Easton's Six Sigma as a Legal Project Management Tool, Part 1. Project management, quality control, sampling, etc. have been percolating to the top of the eDiscovery discussions, but when I saw a post about EDD and Six Sigma, well, I just couldn't contain myself anymore. Remember:
What you do not measure, you cannot control. -Tom Peters
We'll resume the regularly scheduled programming shortly.
