Build. Measure. Learn. Repeat as Necessary.

In last month’s article we discussed the Diffusion Curve, the difference between the early market and the majority market, and the idea that new products or services have to “cross a chasm” (a phrases borrowed from Geoffrey Moore) to reach mainstream adoption.

This month, I’d like to build on that discussion with a focus on adoption of solutions within the legal markets. Technology adoption concepts are applicable to both law firms and corporate legal departments – and within both, the idea of crossing the chasm applies equally to external (e.g. commercial) and internal (homegrown) applications. Unfortunately, the bleak reality is that most new products or services do not work. An article in Fortune pegs that number at a staggering 9 out of every 10 startups fail. As an entrepreneur myself, I can attest that crossing the chasm is hard – much, much, much harder than most people believe.

So where does this leave an intrepid legal innovator in the law firm or corporate legal department? For those looking to build or implement innovative new solutions, the good news is that there’s actually a science to the pursuit. It’s still a difficult endeavor, but a little bit of structure and know-how dramatically improves the odds of success (and likewise limits the time and money you spend on ideas that will fail).

Before discussing what works, let’s take a quick look at how IT solutions have historically been built. We live in a world today where computing power (and storage) is abundant and the tools for building (and testing) such solutions are easy to use and abundant. It was not always so; several years back, programmers didn’t even use something you’d recognize as a computer. They built their programs using punch cards (see Figure 1 below for an example) and then manually fed the cards into the computer in order to run the program.

Figure 1: Computer punch cards

Not only was the process of creating a program time consuming, but getting time on the computer was also costly. As a result, programmers would carefully verify and lay out all aspects of the design before starting their work. This methodology – known by IT professionals as “waterfall” because the project moved linearly without changes from start to end, like water going down a waterfall – was the accepted standard for IT projects for many years. Projects themselves would last for more than a year, culminating in a “big reveal” at launch.

While the waterfall methodology was effective, it also had several issues:

• What if the original requirements were wrong? With this method, we don’t realize this until the entire product has been built and all expenses (and time) have been incurred.
• The market also may change while the product is being built. In today’s world if you were to spend a year building a product, it’s entirely possible that the need for the product would have changed by launch – even if all of the original product goals were met.

The other reality is that development technologies have changed dramatically over the past decade. A development team can make meaningful progress building out a solution in as little as two weeks (or less). This allows us to take a much more agile, iterative approach to development which in turn allows innovators to solicit customer feedback throughout the build process. In his book, The Lean Startup,  Eric Ries talks about the concept of “validated learning” in which hypotheses about use behavior, requirements, etc. are validated through a cycle known as Build – Measure – Learn (shown in Figure 2 below).

Figure 2. Build – Measure – Learn Cycle

The fundamental idea involves engaging select, trusted customers in the process of building a solution, putting early product into their hands, measuring their response, and learning from their feedback to adjust the product along the way. This cycle typically repeats multiple times during the building stage to allowing the development effort to align with the needs of the market, even as those needs continue to change. By getting early and ongoing market feedback, we are also able to quickly identify ideas that lack merit, and either pivot to other ideas or shut down the project altogether before spending significant funds and time.

It is important to note that not all potential customers or users are equal. When looking for your early users, you’ll want people who are interested in partnering with you to solve the problem at hand. A great way to identify these innovators is to find people who have already tried to solve the problem (and may have even spent money on the same), but who have failed up to this point. Going back to the model we discussed last week, the people involved in this process are likely to fall into the category of innovators or early adopters.

I do believe that this philosophy is highly applicable to innovation within the law firm or the corporate legal department – whether innovation is internally driven or in partnership with a vendor. As a champion of innovation, you will find great advantages from communicating directly with your vendors about the needs of your firm. A good partner will listen to (and address) your concerns – and from the developer’s side, your input is highly valuable. Your vendor may not be able to meet every request, but they should try to work with you to deliver a better product that addresses your firm’s needs. This philosophy is a large part of how we have approached innovation at Wolters Kluwer in recent years, and thus far we’ve been very pleased with the results.

For more information on product development (and customer involvement in same), other interesting sources include: Steve Blank’s The Four Steps to the Epiphany and Pragmatic Marketing. In next month’s article – before the industry descends into budget season – we’ll explore how to make the case for stakeholders within the law firm to participate in innovation.

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Dean Sonderegger is Vice President & General Manager, Legal Markets and Innovation at Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S., a leading provider of information, business intelligence, regulatory and legal workflow solutions. Dean has more than two decades of experience at the cutting edge of technology across industries. He can be reached at [email protected]