Management Tools and Trends 2007, at slide 14, reported on by Bain & Company’s Darrell Rigby, lists usage and satisfaction rates from 2006 for 25 well-known management tools. Of those 25, 12 of them general counsel use in various forms. I list them below as they are named and in order of decreasing usage percentage among the executives who responded.
Strategic planning and benchmarking (in the 80% range of usage); mission and vision statements, core competencies, and outsourcing (in the 70% range); business process reengineering, knowledge management, balanced scorecard, and total quality management (each in the 60% range); lean operations at 54 percent; Six Sigma at 40 percent; and offshoring at 37 percent. Admittedly, the penetration of several of these management tools is lower in law departments – especially balanced scorecards, lean operations, Six Sigma and offshoring.
We could even include “shared service centers” in the list, but it’s a stretch because that structure is usually forced on a general counsel.
As to satisfaction rates, business process reengineering, knowledge management and balanced scorecards received satisfaction scores significantly below the overall mean. Similar views might hold among general counsel.