Pinnacle: Business processes and the 3 C’s

One of the most interesting takeaways for me from the finance Briefing Tiger Team session came from Kate Bassett, head of legal project management and process improvement at Ashurst, when she talks about the process being supported by data and educating users to interpret and then act upon the data. This really resonates with Pinnacle’s methodology, which talks about business processes being supported and shaped by the 3Cs – content, capabilities and culture.

The content is the data – we need to capture data to support the process; capabilities of the systems and people, reconfiguring the technology and training the team to get better, faster results; and culture – changing the way the business sees the world, moving to a real-time world. Historically having data 24 hours later is embedded in the culture of law firms. Too many projects in law firms focus on the system capabilities rather than holistically looking at what needs to change in order to support an improved business process.

What’s interesting with the wholesale shift to working from home is how it’s throwing a spotlight on these areas. If you think about life before Covid-19, it was easy enough to fill in the gaps between data, or to get an explanation for anomalies, or to see whether other people had drawn the same conclusions as you, and generally feel ‘in control’. You could wander down to see a colleague, have a chat in a serendipitous corridor encounter, run through things in that familiar context of the in-person weekly meeting.

Now, all we have is digital overload, be that more emails flooding in (estimates are that inboxes are seeing a 40% increase in traffic), more alerts and notifications, or endless Teams and Zoom meetings that are especially fatiguing. In this environment, how can you be sure you’re getting the right data at the right time in the right way? Are you confident of making independent judgments based on that data? Reporting systems need to be fit-for-purpose – and arguably the 3Cs methodology is even more compelling in a world dominated by another C.

Watch the video snippet on YouTube here (Relevant timing: 34:18-37:17).