NEEDS assessments
Before our team can work alongside yours to get your firm to its best and highest performance, we need to know where you are NOW. Enter the Vista Needs Assessment!
The Vista team acts as a doctor providing a comprehensive exam in order to assign a proper diagnosis. Our team spends up to two full days onsite at your firm. We get to know your team, your culture, your workspace, and your workflow. We meet with key team members and dig into current processes and procedures. These days are invaluable in helping us identify next steps. Our Needs Assessments are incredibly thorough. They provide you with a ‘soup to nuts’ analysis of your firm. We focus on ten key areas: vision, infrastructure/culture, building, intake, case management, accounting, human resources, client relations, reporting, and accountability.
Before our team even steps foot in your office, we gather as much information about your firm as we can. This starts with confidential questionnaires to your team members and firm owner(s). Those surveys provide you and your team with a sounding board to provide candid information without concern. The surveys also allow the Vista team to become intimately familiar with your culture, team, and dynamics and know before we go which areas may be hot button issues we need to investigate further. Think of it as the paperwork you complete before your medical exam!
Once we’ve met your team and gotten to know the “now,” we provide you with a comprehensive report for the future, in other words: the diagnosis and treatment plan! Our findings and report might sting a little. In fact, they should. Our work is inherently critical. We are looking for the holes and areas for improvement. It is our mission to give our clients honest, direct, and practical advice that will enable them to reach the firm’s goals. We will tell you the things you’re doing right, of course, but you brought us on board to communicate what we think you can do better and to work with you to initiate an improvement process. We often find ourselves in established, respected law firms with thriving case loads and dedicated team members. However, we are confident that our suggestions and recommendations, if implemented, will put your firm in an even better position to achieve its full potential. Real talk – you don’t know what you don’t know! And we won’t be shy about telling you.
The report you receive after a Needs Assessment will be custom to your firm, will dig into the areas we investigated on site, and will conclude with a prioritized list of action items to address and alleviate the firm’s pain points. Essentially, now that you know what’s wrong, we’ll give you the prescription to fix it! We focus on no-nonsense, attainable goals like standardization of processes. We strongly believe that standardization enables scalability. Part of Vista Consulting Team’s charge is to help you build a foundation that can withstand employee turnover, long vacations or illnesses, and other disruptors. The key is that your firm be run in a standardized manner with tried and true systems at the core of workflow. When firms are people dependent and rely on any one individual’s knowledge, they are simply too vulnerable.
The report is yours, and what you do with it is entirely up to you. Our aim is to cultivate meaningful relationships with our clients. If you choose to have us work with you on the implementation of our recommendations, you’ll find that we are truly your accountability partner helping to initiate and further your law firm’s progress and growth. Your consultant becomes a part of your firm, acting as coach and mentor. We help your team take the next steps into growth and accountability.
