Yosemite came to us looking for better ways to improve their current system. They were already using HotDocs to automate their documents. The problem that they came to us to solve was complex.

The organization consisted of 5 different locations, and they were saving the answer file (a mini data repository in HotDocs) in multiple locations. They needed some consistency in how they were saving the answer files because they would have one person save an answer file in one location and then another person would save a new answer file in another location or the name didn’t match. This was causing them to rework the same file multiple times and had the potential for discrepancies.

At first glance the problem seemed to be easy to solve. People just needed to be more careful. They needed to be better at looking for the right file to begin with. But when you are working with over 40 different users and multiple locations and many places to save the file, however, the idea of just being more careful wasn’t working for them. They needed a better way to handle this problem.

We set up a meeting with them and five of their key staff members to go through and determine exactly what they needed to have done. Going into this meeting we were not completely sure how to solve the problem. We thought a database might be the answer, but HotDocs didn’t have a database solution that matched what they were looking for.

During the meeting, we went through the various issues and started to map out a new process. The meeting was very dynamic in nature in that as the more we talked about the problems, the more ideas started to flow about how to solve them. Having a person from accounting, loan creation, and IT in the same room helped us develop a solution that we would never have created on our own.

The power of getting the right people and the right facilitator involved in the designing of a solution. From the specs that were developed during that meeting, we determined that we needed to develop our own database connection that could meet all of the requirements.  That day we created a standard that the entire organization was willing to adopt. Looking back it seemed so simple.

We have repeated this process for our other clients since then and have had the same results.  It is critical to have all of the stakeholders involved and the right facilitator to get the outcomes that are adopted across an organization.

Yet many firms still don’t follow this process. Since they don’t go and see what is really happening with the various teams that are involved, they miss out on the opportunity to create a standard that everyone will use.

If you would like to learn more about how we can help your firm put the right standards in place, contact us at (801) 766-3183.