Attorney Authored
eDiscovery Project Management: Guidance On Developing A Methodology And Documentary Tools
October 21, 2009
Mark R. Koehn
Project management is mostly about defining and following a process or methodology to accomplish a project. Central to any approach to project management is a focus on the who, what, when, where, and why of communicating with other project members and documenting project work.1 In many fields, including software development, project management methodologies are well-known and many are available for purchase and project-specific tailoring. In contrast, electronic discovery project management methodologies are not well-known.
We are not aware of any published, "off-the-shelf," electronic discovery project management (EDPM) methodologies that can be purchased and tailored to fit the needs of a particular litigation. Regarding EDPM tools, the ediscovery literature is well-stocked with checklists of questions to ask and information to consider and suggestions about software to help organize and track progress on ediscovery tasks. But largely missing from the ediscovery literature are concrete examples of simple documentary tools used in EDPM and guidance on developing a repeatable EDPM methodology. In this article, we attempt to scratch the surface by identifying a few considerations to be covered in a well-designed EDPM methodology and examples of a few EDPM documentary tools.