The Legal Community – Online an Document Repository and Knowledge Management System
(A review 6/4/2005 – 5/31/06)
The Legal Community – Knowledge Management base and Document Repository A Owner: Legal Department Manager: Latanya Washington, Contract Paralegal Date: May 31, 2006 Version: 053006-02
The Legal Community – Online Document Repository and an Knowledge Management System
The Office of the General Counsel commissioned the development of an online document repository and knowledge base in order that the NPC Legal Community would have one central location for important industry news, documents and forms. I was approached by the Sr. Paralegal about my willingness to (“ work on a database” )participate in creating a repository of internal documents provided by internal and Outside Counsel, various business units, trade publications, industry associations in support of managing the legal affairs of Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation. This seemed like an unprecedented opportunity for a legal/technical professional to be involved in creating a knowledge access tool that would be of great benefit to the Novartis Legal Community. Furthermore, my experience as a Paralegal and IT Training Manager seemed custom-made to just such an undertaking. This project was sponsored by the VP and Section Head of Legal, Human Resources, Amy Babat. The original project manager was Michael Dover, a Legal Intern. The goals of the project as I understand it is to create a “ community” helps the attorneys, staff and other designated parties find and use their own that information. It was agreed that I would assume responsibility for the roll-out of the Legal Community after the departure of Michael Dover in late August, 2005. Michael Dover had worked with the IT Department for one (1) year to create the structure of the database and had begun the process of data/information population. As I have been engaged with other duties and responsibilities of the HR/Employment Litigation group, it was a daunting challenge to allocate time to pursue the completion of this project on a part-time basis.
In January 2006, I began to routinely allocate time to pursue this endeavor. More recently, information collection and management have been undertaken. As I attempt to document my research and work, it has become clear that the role of the Project Manager is primary in an intricate document repository/knowledge management project that was envisioned to capture hundreds of documents and eventually serve a global community of legal professionals.
What has happened?
The infrastructure has been built. The IT Department Coordinator for Legal together with the Legal Intern designed an infrastructure to house on online document repository and knowledge management system, heretofore known as the Legal Community database. NPC IT department utilized a portal system called Plumtree. The system is a web front-end, a database to provide metadata search and the Novartis SAN environment to store the data. We leveraged the IWS/Plumtree application to create a keyword search mechanism and it's provided through the Novartis intranet. The IWS system does not require any additional software, other then an internet browser. The Legal Community includes all information/documentation which contributes to the
2
The Legal Community – Knowledge Management base and Document Repository A Owner: Legal Department Manager: Latanya Washington, Contract Paralegal Date: May 31, 2006 Version: 053006-02
knowledge base and consists of the following major components: 1) information creation, 2) storage, 3) access, 4) retrieval, and 5) information tracking and control.
The Legal Community is being promoted as a tool to 1. Foster better communication 2. Create a central location to store pertinent documents (Precedents, Research, Industry standards, trade information, etc.) 3. House a Template Library based upon substantive areas of practice
Why is it important?
If an attorney leaves the company, documents stored on his or her individual computer would, most likely, disappear. Documents existed in a variety of formats including: plain text, HTML and various word processing formats. Certain documents and templates are accessible to the people or groups involved in their creation but there was no cohesive way to locate and share them.
Challenges
I often thought of this project undertaking is a grassroots effort. This project required additional awareness and as well as dedicated resources. In the initial stages, I presumed that it would be apparent to the attorneys and management the need to preserve, find and share their knowledge. The field has been built, but they haven’come. In all fairness, I have been wearing two hats that require t very different skill set. I have just recently been able to commit. Unfortunately, this bottom-up approach resulted in a lack of upper-level management awareness and support, with a subsequent lack of dedicated resources. Unknowingly, I was experiencing “ mismatch between reality and expectation; goals that make sense in the abstract may be absurd in practice.” Getting started as a team of one, with a manager as my sponsor, I needed to quickly get a handle on this project. At inception, the timeframe for the project and the resources that would be made available were fairly undefined. The basic directive was to get it done “ inexpensively as possible” as . I began a detailed project plan that included a project description and goals, and attempted to identify all of the critical components that needed to be considered. A short version of the initial project description reads “ Create a knowledge system which all personnel can use to access, create, and store information in order to enhance knowledge sharing, collaboration, and expedite decision-making. This knowledge system will include all information/documentation which contributes to the knowledge base and will consist of the following major components: 1) information creation, 2) storage, 3) access, 4) retrieval, and 5) information tracking and control. This system will be a real-time, dynamic Intranet tool that is well-organized, and very easy to use and maintain. It will be a critical knowledge collaboration tool.” The list of project goals additionally included: furthering the business goals of the legal department, meeting the knowledge-sharing needs and behaviors of the users, improving upon current knowledge sharing
3
The Legal Community – Knowledge Management base and Document Repository A Owner: Legal Department Manager: Latanya Washington, Contract Paralegal Date: May 31, 2006 Version: 053006-02
processes, and providing a platform independent information creation and use. I talked to other practitioners who were implementing document management systems as well as met with members of the IT Department including Stan Dudek to attempt to gain insight as to their role in developing the Legal Community. I also felt that it was important to contact people working on similar projects within NPC to get their advice, find out about resources and tools, and understand the current, and ongoing, state of document management within the company. There was no one set of tools or processes that could be leveraged at a corporate level to help with a smaller project. There were, however, a number of people with exceptional document management skills that they had gained by working on teams to implement major projects.
Getting to Know End-Users:
I considered it crucial to talk to the attorneys and staff who would be using this tool so that I could understand what they wanted (and needed). After studying the Substantive Area contacts list, I approached several attorneys face-to-face (I am certain that my predecessor did likewise). I selected the group that bought into the application of technology based upon interviews with the IT Coordinator who had substantially more NPC knowledge and understands the environment. It was recommended that the Transactions Group was the most suitable for to pilot the KM and document repository. The Transaction Lawyers’ group can provide input as to the organization and categorization of the types of documents that are most helpful to them in practice. It was further recommended that one attorney and one Administrative Assistant from the group be identified to support the group in document selection and managing We suggests that a series of 4-6 focus sessions be held in order for the Paralegals to begin the document integration process. By document integration, it means where one document, pleading, etc. can be cross-referenced in other NPC practice areas. E.g., Compliance and Policies. The session will be facilitated by Latanya Washington and Orlando Rodriguez.. Encouraging the attorneys to participate in the workshops provides the benefit of having members of the team are experienced and have NPC specific knowledge of processes and operations which impact how the Legal conducts business. These persons also possess (in most instances) a higher level of understanding of the legal needs of the Pharma industry. Establishing an in-house mechanism for training and sharing knowledge via the use of the Legal Community, would benefit staff by increasing their understanding of the administrative, legal and technical issues that impact business as well as foster the cooperative spirit of teamwork. The program would also serve to create a knowledgebase for issues surrounding the use of the Legal Community. The participant’ feedback would aid in creating a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) s document that the Legal Community users could refer to for advice and information about the system and how to use it appropriately.
Where are we?
Attempting to organize information for better communication (what’important for sharing) s Interviewing attorneys, consulting with business units that own various legal documents
4
The Legal Community – Knowledge Management base and Document Repository A Owner: Legal Department Manager: Latanya Washington, Contract Paralegal Date: May 31, 2006 Version: 053006-02
Working with the Transactions Lawyers group to move selected documents to the Legal Community.
The Transactions Lawyers Group:
Under the direction of Bruce Shapiro and after meeting with the Project Leader and IT Coordinator, the Transactions Lawyers’ group discussed the criteria for documents to be included in the Legal Community and developed a list of folders based upon substantive areas of practice and common knowledge.
The list was converted to folders and placed in the G: drive the folder “ G:\BusUnits\Legal\Data\WashingtonL\DATA\Legal Community.” As of May 30, 2006, the Project Leader and IT Coordinator were in the process of removing metadata from the documents. Once this process is completed, the contents of the Transactions folder should be uploaded to the Legal Community into their respective folders.
Wish list:
Implementation of Project Management Methodology Technical documentation for the project A peer review database where work progress can be monitored A website that provided access to software development tool information. Standard approach to the implementation of these knowledge resources and metadata.
5
The Legal Community – Knowledge Management base and Document Repository A Owner: Legal Department Manager: Latanya Washington, Contract Paralegal Date: May 31, 2006 Version: 053006-02
Version: 01 Manager: Latanya Washington Version: 02 Manager: Latanya Washington Version: 03 Manager: Version: 04 Manager:
Date: March 1, 2006 Contract Paralegal Date: May 31, 2006 Contract Paralegal
6