Formal project management practices are increasingly prominent within corporations around the world. Likewise, e-discovery project management has become a way to control spending and improve project results, whether that operation is an in-house team at a law firm or corporate legal department, or it is a core business line at a legal technology partner and provider. Adherence to project management standards within an e-discovery operation can lead to more optimal outcomes for the case team, clients and the e-discovery operation itself.

In the "Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge" (or PMBOK guide), the Project Management Institute outlines key project-management processes intended to guide the general phases of a project's execution: project conception and initiation, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, and finally, closing. To facilitate proper execution of each phase, project managers must understand the key components to this framework and how each process contributes to the success of an e-discovery matter. Here's how to navigate each step and a few tips and tricks to get started.

Conception and Initiation

Conflict checking can be a challenging process in organizations of all sizes. Tools like InTapp, AutoTask and Salesforce can be leveraged to store historical customer information, but they are not always cost-effective solutions for smaller companies. Tracking the parties involved in your clients' matters is vital, so even if you are utilizing a simple spreadsheet, searching across these information troves is important to maintain your integrity and ethical standing as an e-discovery support operation.

Presuming conflicts are cleared, almost every e-discovery matter should start with a kick-off call. Initial contacts and scope description can come via email, but it is imperative the stakeholders have a conversation about the project scope, budgetary considerations, deadlines, specifications and expectations. Too often, one party allows assumptions and implied meanings to supersede stipulated and documented understandings of the matter parameters and objectives. This is a recipe for, at minimum, a sub-optimal outcome, or worse, a disastrous result requiring rework, legal implications or dismissal from the working relationship.

Following the kick-off call, it is important the project manager presents a written recap, the decisions made to specifications for processing and production, and the deadlines articulated by the case team and agreed to or tempered by the project manager. The project manager should request any stipulated agreements that are in place with opposing counsel and the court with respect to forms of production, search and review methodologies, and scope of electronically storied information (ESI) collection and reduction. Further, a savvy project manager will elicit the case team's obligations to provide written responses to opposing's production requests, and deadlines that have been set for the supporting document productions.

Planning

For some projects, holding an additional internal kick-off call with the project's immediate team members may be warranted. Particularly for large or especially complex e-discovery matters, coordinating resources so that common objectives are outlined and client's needs are clear to all will alleviate inaction or mistakes later. To prepare for this call, it is important to gather information from the client, including existing deadlines, a high-level understanding of the ESI sources at play and contacts with whom the client expects to interface.

Furthermore, with respect to deadlines, it is imperative the e-discovery team understands when written responses to initial requests for production are due, and whether the actual document production is due at the same time. If timelines are tight, prioritizing the processing specific custodians' data along with a cadence of rolling productions may help shorten the distances between start-up and production.

Execution

If the two preceding processes have been carried out properly, project execution should operate like a well-oiled machine. But, even with the most intricate planning, details and instructions can get muddled. To help alleviate these pitfalls, an e-discovery team should leverage tools that can track decisions, milestones, processing instructions and metrics related to carrying out the various phases of the e-discovery lifecycle.

Processing platforms like Nuix, as well as those embedded in review platforms like Relativity, iCONECT's Xera and Lateral Data's Viewpoint do a tremendous job of tracking data volumes, file types, processing exceptions, and processing specifications used in getting ESI to the point of review and analysis. Further, most modern review platforms will track the activities of reviewers and other resources working with the rendered data and display that information in simplified graphical representations.

Performance and Monitoring

While it's important to have a solid understanding of your resources' performance and the intricacies of your data, it's even more critical to track the conversations, decisions, and operating procedures that crop up during the execution.

Tools like Microsoft's OneNote, Asana, ActiveCollab and Zoho are all configured for project management tasks and milestone tracking. Our firm uses ActiveCollab projects templated with every phase of our standard operation procedures outlined as tasks and sub-tasks so that our e-discovery project managers and analysts can progress through our workflows in a finely detailed fashion, creating and updating artifacts of the case lifecycle throughout their efforts. There are additional features in most of these platforms that will track timelines, budget allocations, and resource utilization. Modern systems are getting increasingly sophisticated, while allowing a high degree of flexibility for customers and users to tailor the interface to meet their requirements.

While understanding and leveraging project management best practices is important to the execution of a successful project, keep in mind that effective project managers must be knowledgeable, have the ability to apply their knowledge and possess the leadership skills to achieve project objectives while balancing project constraints.

After nearly 20 years in the field, one thing is certain: regardless of how much technology changes, following these phases and engaging project managers with the right skill sets and attitudes will ensure a successful e-discovery matter execution.

Kyle Campbell is the director of litigation support at LOGICFORCE, a leading technology consulting firm serving the legal industry. He has nearly 20 years of experience in all facets of the industry, including e-discovery software development, strategic business consulting with an emphasis on e-discovery and litigation support and working in-house with law firms and e-discovery service providers.