Mentoring and Coaching in Management Report (Assessment)

Barton Legal Services appeared to meet the changes and innovations in the world of legal practice and decided to develop a be-spoke, integrated software product. The solution was based on the principles that juridical practice and the management of the company is no longer ruled by print and paper in today’s legal framework. The main advantages include tools to give the employees messages of the existence of new law and changes in old, also legal risks will be managed in advance of questions appearing and so dispute forestall rather than dispute resolution will become an important principle and others. The only problem that needs solution according to the solicitors of Barton Legal Services is that the employees of the company are rather conservative selecting their working methods and that the solicitors themselves are suspicious to any new method that, to their opinion, restrains working flexibility in working practice. Anyhow the solicitors can be divided into those who are interested in IT and those who adhere to traditions (Culp, 2001).

The further discussion will be devoted to the question of how and what informational technologies can be used in law and particularly in information system of Barton Legal Services. According to the research carried out there are six basic applications of technology that could be used for lowers and legal information services: electronic communication, text creation and production, litigation support, internal know-how, external information retrieval and case management. These are not strict definitions but identified categories of application which can represent the basis of workable IT project for Barton Legal Services (Culp, 2001). The six categories interact with one another, moreover some of the applications actually relies one or another.

Electronic Communication and Legal Support

Solicitors constantly deal with kinds of information – law regulations, case studies, legal textbooks, information relating to client matters, including accounting and management information, marketing information, and personal and internal know-how (Culp, 2001). These statements result hat the job of a lawyer involves activities of sharing of the information and its transfer to others; to colleagues, barristers, other firms, the courts of justice, and other agencies; and also its sale to clients. Five basic functions of electronic communication for legal framework can be defined. The first point is sending and receiving messages. The generic term means electronic mail or “e-mail” that allows users to send and receive messages. This facility is commonly used by solicitors across local area networks within their practices but communicating this way with other computer users and clients beyond their firms may become a necessary tool. This means the change from interpersonal computing to inter-organizational IT. And represent e-mail as a substitute for telephone conversations, exchange of memoranda, and informal letters. The second point is gaining access to internal know-how. The creation of unlimited access to databases of internal know-how, to the cases studied in order that solicitors can take advantage and speed up work with the help of accumulated expertise and experience within Barton Legal Services.

The third point is gaining access to external information. This point includes access to external information held in online databases. Solicitors may use electronic communications facilities search engine to find relevant information view and download the data into their own computers (where the law of copyright permits this). The forth point is providing access to information on particular activities. Clients as well as lawyers should have ready access to information concerning particular activities that are handled. This could be a status reporting function that can vary in detail and consist of different information. The fifth point enables free-form discussion with other users. That means the exchange of opinion among participants on pre-specified topics. Real-time interchanges amongst participants can increase the speed of decision approval. In legation support IT comprises two components. The first component means assistance to managing and control of the documents which solicitors have to study and advance in order to prepare their client’s case. The second component is the usage of IT to store and make available to study the work progressed by lawyers and to generate their own databases linking relevant documents to one another and enabling users to study the work product and evident. The main task of legal support is to make automatic different aspects of trial preparation. Searching, retrieval, cross-referencing, and annotating can be done automatically using IT.

Internal Know-How

The common statement is that the information as well as being internal seems to be that the data available is practical in it meaning, focused, as the term know-how suggests, on how to operate the process and get things done. The internal database of the legal service company may be consisted of several items discussed further. The precedent bank means that standard form documents are stored in a special database of the company, so that they can be found and used again in appropriate circumstances. Legal storeroom includes historical documents, useful letters of advice, reports, contracts, pleadings, and so forth. Indexing by reference to subject matter, author, and document type is also very important. The subject matter is all-important and rich vocabularies and thesauri of legal terms and meanings which help to compile this part of the index. Ideally, there should be restricted definitions which can be used for categorizing subject matter. Work product retrieval tool enables solicitors to refer to relevant activity done in the past and reused where appropriate on later cases.

Case Management

Case management tool is a type of project management. In order to assist progressing of individual cases all users can run case management systems. Designed to drive cases efficiently from the initial stage through to final realization flow management systems appear to be computerized dairying and scheduling tools, which develop timetables for important events and tasks in a legal matter.

Text Creation and Production

Users will directly type the text into any system in use. Some users will prefer to type using keyboards as their device of text entry. But today speaker independent, large vocabulary, continuous speech voice recognition systems are available. As users speak to their computers, the words will appear instantaneously on their screens, not only making the process automated but editing it by allowing immediate examination of the words.

The discussed previously tools will help the solicitors to improve the quality of work produced and further plan will comprise this knowledge in the information system most suitable for Barton Legal Services. The existing information systems and their levels (operational, knowledge, management, and strategic) will be displayed below:

• Operational Level Systems. Operational systems aid managers by tracking elementary activities and orders. The primary objective of this kind of information systems is to keep flow of transactions through the organization. In Transaction – Processing Systems (TPS) (Shell, 2003), the five basic needs of organization are normally comprised: finance (cash management), accounting (payroll, accounts payable, accounts receivable), sales and marketing (order tracking and order processing), manufacturing (machine control, plant scheduling, material movement), and human resources (payroll, training and development, employee record keeping). TPS is the basic business system that aid in daily routine operations.
• Knowledge Level Systems. Knowledge level systems aid managers in organizing internal resources of a company, as they support knowledge and data workers (Susskind, 1998). These systems, as a rule of thumb, include forms of collaboration tools, office systems, workstations. Knowledge Work Systems (KWS) and Office Automation Systems (OAS) aid workstation engineering, graphics workstations, document imaging, management workstations, and electronic calendar (Shell, 2003).
• Management Level Systems. Management information systems aid in monitoring, controlling, administrative activities, and decision-making of middle level managers. Normally, these systems provide reports rather instant information on current operations (Shell, 2003). While some of these systems support less structured decisions, other focus on routine decision making (Susskind, 1998).. Management Information Systems (MIS) and Decision Support Systems (DSS) include sales management and regional analysis, inventory control that is followed by production planning, cost analysis and annual budgeting, capital investment and cost profitability analysis, contract cost analysis and relocation analysis (Rivera & Casias, 2001).
• Strategic Level Systems. The fourth and highest level of information systems is strategic level systems that address strategic issues and long term trends in organizational development including both external and internal environment. The basic concern of these systems is to match organizational capabilities to threats and opportunities in the medium to long term, which is the period of 5 to 10 years (Shell, 2003). Executive Support Systems (ESS) aid in sales trend forecasting, capital budgeting, operational planning, profit and manpower planning for a period of 5 to 10 years, as previously indicated.

Selection of information systems for Barton Legal Services starts from determination of the informational needs of a given enterprise. Objective assessment of the organizational needs is the first step in information system development for Barton Legal Services. This process starts from an in-depth survey of the organizational needs that involves everyone employed in the company. One should start with dividing company into departments and then surveying every department within a company to estimate the basic informational requirements. The survey can be conducted in the form of an open ended questionnaire that allows identify the informational needs and trends. The next step is to set priorities at the same time remaining objective. This step can be attained through a close ended questionnaire, as informational needs have been identified and only importance and priority should be determined. (Galliers, 1999).

Finally, the established informational needs must be projected onto the future organizational needs to make sure that the selected information system meets the requirements for the long term. Informational systems are then selected based on the conducted research within organization and employee needs and considering the external factors for a long rather than short period of time. Following the specified theory it could be proposed that the most suitable information system for Barton Legal Services will be knowledge level system that enables the company to manage internal resources in the best way with all the necessary tools, databases and application. (Galliers, 1999).

The development of such kind of a system will require a vast amount of money as the system should be specially developed for Barton Legal Services, have the highest protection level and meet in requirements to the management plan.

If a manager wants to plan adequately, he or she must make effective decisions. In many ways, the decision wheel could be titled easily a planning wheel. Many of the steps are the same.

The planning process differs from the decision-making process because planning is so concrete. Although the decision wheel can be applied to most any decision, business planning takes three forms: strategic planning, intermediate planning, and short-run planning. (Galliers, 1999).

Strategic planning involves allocating resources to achieve the long-term goals of an organization. Intermediate planning usually covers 6 months to 2 years and provides reinforcement or correction data for the long-term goals. Short-run planning involves plans for a few weeks or at most I year. This type of plan is meant to allocate resources on a day-to-day or month-to-month basis. The strategic plan fulfills the firm’s mission and overall general goals. The intermediate plan involves the general way in which the strategic plan will be pursued, and the short-run plan is how the strategic plan will work on a day-to-day basis.

All three types of planning have commonalities although the time period, responsible parties, and actual steps vary. Barton Legal Services Company should have general organizational goals which are fairly abstract statements of what a firm hopes to achieve within given areas of performance. These goals are derived from the organization’s mission as its business domain. It often includes statements about the firm’s role outside its primary business markets (Galliers, 1999).

In order to assess progress, an organization must have operational definitions for measurement. The main points of the plan for Barton Legal Services include (Sayers, 1997):

1. Examine the legal service business environment and past performance.
2. Evaluate available resources.
3. Identify, select, prioritize, and operationalize planning goals.
4. Identify alternative approaches for obtaining goals.
5. Select from the alternative approaches.
6. Implement the plan.
7. Monitor implementation.
8. Evaluate plan’s progress and adjust the plan.

The development of the information system for Barton Legal Services requires from the company certainty about the planning goals that can be met, and company must evaluate at-hand resources. At hand resources include the company’s name and reputation, personnel, equipment, and finances. At hand means the resources either are held currently by the firm or can be borrowed easily. Thus, financial resources also include an organization’s credit (Sayers, 1997).

Evaluating available resources is important because resources determine whether goals can be achieved, and although resources can be changed from one form to another, the process does not occur as quickly as management would like. In the case of Barton Legal Services resources allocated are staff, experience and finance. According to the staff and questionnaire the main goals should determined (Sayers, 1997). And on that base IT technologists start Systems Life Cycle. It is used by a system analyst to develop an information system, including requirements, validation, training, and user ownership through investigation, analysis, design, implementation, and maintenance. SLC is also known as information systems development or application development. SLC is a systematic approach to problem solving and is composed of several phases, each comprising multiple steps:

• The information system concept – identifies and defines a need for the new system.
• A requirements analysis – analyzes the information needs of the end users.
• The architectural design – creates a blueprint for the design with the necessary specifications for the hardware, software, people and data resources.
• Coding and Debugging – creates and programs the final system.

System testing – evaluates the system’s actual functionality in relation to expected or intended functionality (Sohn, Ardyth, LeBlanc, Lacy, Sylvie,2000).

Also such points should be mentioned: terms of reference — Barton Legal Services should decide what capabilities and objectives they wish the new system to incorporate.

Definition either company’s’ concept of their desired new system is actually an achievable, realistic goal, in-terms of money, time and end result. Monitoring (watching) the staff to see how they work better. Analysis — free from any cost or unrealistic constraints, this stage lets minds run wild as ‘wonder systems’ can be thought-up, though all must incorporate everything asked for by the management in the Terms Of Reference section;

Design — designers will produce one or more ‘models’ of what they see a system eventually looking like, with ideas from the analysis section either used or discarded. A document will be produced with a description of the. Implementation and Review — set-up and install the new system including writing any custom (bespoke) code required, train staff to use it and then monitor how it operates for initial problems, and then regularly maintain thereafter. The basic plan for IT specialists should include the following stages:

• Planning – establishing the plans for creating an information system by IT technologists.
• Defining the system to be developed – based on the systems prioritized according to the organization’s critical success factor (CSF), a system must be identified and chosen.
• The project scope – a high level of system requirements must be defined and put into a project scope document.
• Developing the project plan – all details from tasks to be completed, who completed them and when they were completed must be formalized.
• Managing and monitoring the project plan – this allows the organization to stay on track, creating project milestones and feature creeps which allow the to add to the initial plan
• Analysis – the users and IT specialists collaborate to collect, comprehend, and logistically formalize business requirements.
• Gathering the business requirements’ – IT specialists and knowledge workers collaborate in a joint application design (JAD) and discuss which tasks to undertake to make the system most successful.
• Analyzing the requirements – business requirements are prioritized and put in a requirements definition document where the knowledge worker will approve and place their signatures.
• Design – this is where the technical blueprint of the system is created by IT technologists.
• Designing the technical architecture – choosing amongst the architectural designs of telecommunications, hardware and software that will best suit the organization’s system and future needs.
• Designing the systems model – graphically creating a model from graphical user interface (GUI), GUI screen design, and databases, to placement of objects on screen.
• Development – executing the design into a physical system by IT specialists.
• Building the technical architecture – purchasing the material needed to build the system
• Building the database and programs – the IT specialists write programs which will be used on the system.
• Testing – testing the developed system.
• Write the test conditions – test conditions are conducted by comparing expected outcomes to actual outcomes. If these differ, a bug is generated and a backtrack to the development stage must occur.
• Implementation – the systems are placed and used in the actual workforce and
• The user guide is created.
• Training is provided to the users of the system – usually through workshops or online
• Maintenance – keeping the system up to date with the changes in the organization and ensuring it meets the goals of the organization.
• Building a help desk to support the system users – having a team available to aid technical difficulties and answer questions.
• Implementing changes to the system when necessary.

The discussion of content of mentoring should start with definition of this process itself. So, mentoring is a combination of activities which are conducted by a certain person, also called mentor, in order to provide support for another person, the mentee or protégé. Mentor’s help is especially significant when mentee does not have enough experience of the job he/she is conducting and mentor provides a valid advice for this person, so that the task would be completed successfully and it would serve as an example for mentee to follow.

There are many creative definitions of this process (Sohn, Ardyth, LeBlanc, Lacy, Sylvie,2000)., which describe it as interaction or developmental relationship between mentee and protégé, involving beneficial for both parties exchange of experience; however all of these definitions have one thing in common – two-sided relationships built between mentor and mentee.

The history of mentorship goes deep in antiquity, being introduced in “Odyssey” by Homer, where the goddess Athena is guiding young and inexperienced Telemachus to overcome the obstacles and difficulties he had faced. Later, mentorship traditions were reflected in such religions like Hinduism or Buddhism, and even Christianity, which promoted the idea of support and mutual help.

Today, the theory of mentorship has taken slightly different and more sophisticated forms due to the fact that new approaches and methods of mentorship’s practice were worked out, making this process much more beneficial for both mentee and mentor.

On the way to deeper understanding of mentoring relationships it is important to distinguish two types of mentorship: informal and formal. The first one is based on the idea that both parties should build mentorship relationships on their own without any requirements or certain approaches. On the other hand formal mentoring aims to develop assigned relationships which are designed to enhance successful development of employees. Formal mentoring involves a great variety of tools like program goals, trainings provided for both protégés and mentors and finally assessment of mentorship programs’ results.

A good example of mentorship process and its importance in the overall performance of the company is the case when new employee is recruited in international IT Company. In spite of his/her high qualification this person needs a temporary mentor who will support the new comer in obtaining necessary information about this company and its practices; after the short term introduction conducted by the mentor this new employee is ready to apply his/her knowledge in the new environment of IT company. On the other hand, the CEOs of this company may want to promote high potential employees, providing them with an opportunity to take leadership roles, so these employees are paired up with more experienced mentors with relatively high level of leadership skills; as a result, protégés are given practical consultations on the ways of taking the leadership position in this company.

General Overview: Coaching

Coaching is a process which involves a person who helps another person, also called clients, on the way of achieving certain goals, encouraging the client to find his/her own solution of the problem. It is essential to understand that the coachee is not provided with an advice or recommendation on the issue, but he/she is motivated and supported by the coach to work out own plan of actions in order to solve certain problem (Susskind, 1998)..

Looking into the roots of coaching process, it can be noted that the term “coaching” first appeared in the nineteenth century to refer to the process of controlling the team. However, this word was rather narrowly applied to the area of sports and athletic teams in the colleges. Today coaching as a process of motivational and inspirational stimulus is widely common in a great variety of non-sporting environments, like business or organizational structure.

There is a great number of various types of coaching, in particular: individual, team, organizational and business, executive and systemic, dissertation and ontological coaching, – every type contains its own distinctive peculiarities and, but also necessarily based on the main principle of coaching – two way communication process between the client and his/her coach (Susskind, 1998)..

According to The Coaching Academy, a great amount of business skills is exchanged and passed through the effective system of coaching. As an example of the positive impact of coaching process the following case can be presented: international IT company has invited a highly qualified coach whose aim is to improve performance of certain department of this company. In order to achieve this goal, invited specialist should start with assessment of department’s efficiency, its overall strengths and weaknesses and after thorough and accurate analysis of the situation work out the program of training for this particular group of individuals. This training should aim to enhance the knowledge of coachees, increasing the level of their cooperation and mutual support (Jakupec, Garrick, 2000).

Team and organizational coaching was involved in the case described above, however, business coaching is another form of coaching which has gained its wide popularity in many countries in the world. In this case, coaches are required to work out successful business plan or even launch a particular business, so the level of qualifications and experience of such business coaches should be considerably high. So, the main advantage of the coaching process is the fact that a company, in particular IT enterprise, is provided with innovative trainings and useful suggestions regarding the improvement of company’s performance.

Inter-comparison: Mentoring and Coaching

The nature of both coaching and mentoring was researched above, and it can be concluded that these two processes share certain similarities, and to a certain extent differ from each other (Jakupec, Garrick, 2000).

It can not be denied that both coacher and mentor help their clients to achieve their goals, by reaching their full potential, whether these are individuals or large international companies. Both coaching and mentorship processes can be offered in professional, also called paid, or philanthropic, or unpaid, forms, which depends on the relationships or agreement set between two parties.

Another similarity of these two processes is the content of tasks and purposes which should be fulfilled by mentors or coachers (Jakupec, Garrick, 2000):

1. Conduct the exploration and deep research of needs and skills of the second party.
2. Take advantage of the questioning techniques in order to gather necessary information about possible solutions of the particular issue.
3. Provide customer with essential support of setting the goals or evaluation methods, which are integral parts of company’s performance.
4. Use a variety of innovational and effective tools, like one-to-one training or method of councelling and networking, and many others.
5. Maintain beneficial relationships with the second side, which are based on the principles of long lasting support and non-judgment of the customer’s decision, lifestyles or views.

On the other hand, coaching and mentoring should not be perceived as the same process due to the fact that mentoring is based on the idea that more experienced and skilled colleague can provide significant support to his/her mentee by sharing the knowledge and own methods of work; on the contrary, the coach may not necessarily possess experience of customer’s occupation and offer consultations on the overall improvements, which are not related to the field where the coachee is working (Jakupec, Garrick, 2000). And as it was noted above, coaching is not supposed to supply its clients with solutions to their problems, but only enhance process of identifying possible solutions by customers themselves.

Information Systems Development and the Role of Communication

Effective Communication Principles: IT Specialists and Users

Information Systems Development involves two participants- Informational Technology Specialists and their Users, which cooperate in the never-ending exchange of information and knowledge. It can not be denied that the effect of user-participation in the development of communications is significant, and the role of users in achieving effective communication management can not be underestimated. So, the principle of customers’ involvement in the process of successful communication development should be included in the overall strategy of any Informational Technology company.

Another important principle of IT company is the process of receiving appropriate and critical feedback from its users. Moreover, it was discovered that if company’s customers took active part in designing a particular project, they were more likely to adopt new systems and more interested in continuing cooperation with this IT company. So, involvement of users establishes long lasting relationships between its customers and IT specialists.

In order to achieve mutual understanding and cooperation between users and IT specialists, communication model of users’ involvement should be designed. In this particular case, a four-stage model can be proposed with the following communication stages and a distinctive combination of certain tools for each stage:

1. The first stage is based on the idea that users should be fully aware of the available opportunities of communication with IT developers. A great variety of tools, like feedback or complaints, as well as customers’ suggestions, can be effectively used in this stage.
2. The second stage involves transition of customers’ messages, which can be achieved through various communication channels. It is recommended that the status of a particular user- first time or permanent user- should affect the level of their involvement: in particular special clients should be entitled to participate in the project-team meetings, as an example of two way information flow.
3. The third level is mostly based on the process of interpretation of users’ messages and suggestions, which is rather complicated task because some information, either accidentally or intentionally can be misinterpreted or even changed. So, the number of intermediaries involved in this process should be decreased to prevent distortion of users’ messages.
4. IT specialists can finally set certain priorities on the basis of users’ feedback, and work out the plan of future actions and measures in order to meet customers’ requirements.

Effective Communication with IT Specialists: Potential Problems

It should be clearly understood that high level of user-participation in the process of communication development does not guarantee the increase of profitability of any IT company, however this process involves increasing expenses and costs of setting and controlling this communication system.

On the other hand, intentional neglect of users’ needs and requirements can lead to much more significantly negative consequences, which may even threaten the future development of IT company. So, in spite of possible disadvantages of user-involvement program, this system should be set and reviewed constantly with necessary updated and modifications.

Unfortunately, there are numerous potential problems which IT specialists may face during communication with their users. First of all, some users may set the wrong combination of requirements or state irrelevant problems, so developers should carefully analyze all the feedback they receive and conclude whether the users’ suggestions should be taken into account or not.

Secondly, setting successful system of collecting customers’ information is a rather complicated process, which requires much time and considerate investment in order to benefit from it. Thirdly, many IT specialists have faced problem of unwillingness from the side of their users to supply this company representatives with their personal information or even their recommendations.

And the last but not the least problem which can emerge during communication between IT specialists and its users, is the distortion of the date received either about appropriate users or their feedback, then the source of false information should be identified and eliminated from the list.

Works Cited

Culp, Christopher L. 2001. The Risk Management Process: Business Strategy and Tactics. New York: Wiley.

Currie, Wendy and Bob Galliers, eds. 1999. Rethinking Management Information Systems: An Interdisciplinary Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Jakupec, Viktor and John Garrick, eds. 2000. Flexible Learning, Human Resource, and Organisational Development: Putting Theory to Work. London: Routledge.

Sayers, Philip. 1997. Competitive Tendering: Management and Reality : Achieving Value for Money. London: E & FN Spon.

Shell, Richard L. 2003. Management of Professionals. New York: Marcel Dekker.

Sohn, Ardyth Broadrick, Jan LeBlanc Wicks, Stephen Lacy, and George Sylvie. 1999. Media Management: A Casebook Approach. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Susskind, Richard. 1998. The Future of Law: Facing the Challenges of Information Technology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.