This key user facing role within the IT department will be responsible for capturing, analysing & documenting business requirements for the IT team, working with stakeholders to determine the priority of requirements based on value to the business, defining the scope of the change activity, and then working with both business users, IT staff and other business services departments to guarantee the change activity meets the business needs and deliver the change.

Based within the Lawyer Productivity team there is key requirement to the better use of technology to improve the process of providing legal services to our clients. A significant part of this role will involve helping the business to maximise the value in its investment in productivity, knowledge and document management tools and any other technologies that we may adopt in the future.

Main duties and responsibilities

Scoping

• Work with the IT Business partner, project teams, the IT leadership team and the wider stakeholder community to gain a detailed understanding of the mandatory and desired outcomes of project/change activities; capture and maintain the associated requirements log.
• Support the development of options for the range of technical solutions available to meet the project brief.
• Make solution and process recommendations based on fit, technical feasibility and cost analysis.
• Ensure solutions follow the guidance laid out by the Strategy and Architecture function, most notably when making choices between ‘off-the-shelf’/standardised and ‘internally developed’/bespoke and in ensuring fit to Simmons & Simmons long term IT objectives.
• Develop testing and performance measurement/quality plans that enable the project team to measure whether the solution delivered is fit for purpose and meets the brief.

Delivering

• Capture, analyse & document business requirements
• Work with key stakeholders to determine the priority of requirements
• Work with stakeholders during the design, build and test phases to ensure the solution meets the needs of the business
• Lead or support project meetings, tracking progress against targets, ensuring commitment from team members to future milestones and recording issues and risks.
• Lead or support maintaining the project risk log.
• Take accountability for highlighting issues, engaging the team to find solutions and ensuring that the necessary remedial action is pursued.
• Provide input into all relevant project and departmental documentation as required to ensure the solution can be maintained and supported in-life; actively support the training team in developing the necessary training for both IT and end-user audiences.
• Support initiatives and create service improvements
• Circulate knowledge across the wider IT function and actively promote knowledge sharing initiatives
• Assist the IT BRP in the development of the lawyer strategy for productivity, documentation and knowledge tools
• Assist the IT BRP to monitor and track business issues and adoption of processes and tools.
• Be proactive in terms of business process and tool configuration suggestions.

Person specification

• Track record of applying business or logical analysis to break down complex problems and identify viable solutions.
• Able to work with user groups to break down loosely defined requirements into actionable facts that define the success of the project.
• Understanding of transversal enterprise IT applications and the supporting IT and telecoms infrastructure, with specific reference to Microsoft and document production products.
• Effective at building and sustaining relationships across all levels of the organisation, both within IT and beyond.
• Credible in relaying detailed information to a non-expert audience in a manner that creates action and gets results.
• Experience in acting as a point of reference to a delivery team, confident in working and negotiating with technical experts to ensure the project’s mandate is achieved.
• Experience of various tools and techniques applicable to breaking down problems, formulating solutions, and tracking and prioritising risks and issues.
• Experience of developing financial tolls to track and forecast spend against budget.
• Strong time management, organisation and prioritisation skills, with the motivation to exceed expectations
• (Desirable) Law and/or professional services experience
• (Desirable) A good understanding of project lifecycle methodologies such as Waterfall and Agile
• (Desirable) A good understanding of the Microsoft product suite
• (Desirable) A good understanding of Document Management Systems (ideally iManage Work)
• (Desirable) a good understanding of Legal Tech (ideally BigHand Outline and Dictation, Litera suite and Nuance)