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Step 1 of DMAIC for legal teams: defining the problem—waste identification, Voice of the Client, team involvement and building the business case

Published by a LexisNexis Local Government expert

Practice notes

There are five essential stages to boosting efficiency overall consistently:

define precisely which process requires improvement (covered in this Practice Note)
measure the issue clearly (see Practice Note: Improving efficiency: Step 2—measure the problem)
analyse the relevant data (see Practice Note: Improving efficiency: Step 3—analyse what is causing the problem)
enhance the process meaningfully (see Practice Note: Improving efficiency: Step 4—improve the problem)
control, ie embed the revised process firmly so it becomes business as usual (see Practice Note: Improving efficiency: Step 5—embedding changes)

Management consultants widely describe this as the ‘DMAIC framework’.

This Practice Note takes you through the opening step—the ‘define’ stage in detail.

It sets out two practical ways to pinpoint which processes merit attention at this stage, ie by:

identifying where processes create waste, as waste truly signals an inefficient process
checking carefully whether the way of working genuinely delivers what clients want within reason, ie within the scope of what the team is willing to do for clients ultimately

It also outlines some tactics to secure staff buy-in right at this very early point and engagement.

Identifying waste

A practical method for revealing where problems or bottlenecks sit within a department is often...

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Beth Pipe , FCIPD

OnLive Learning

Beth is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (FCIPD) and has spent over 25 years specialising in Learning and Development. During that time she has worked across a broad variety of different industries and has, for the past 15 years, worked closely with a number of well known law firms; this has involved putting in to place systems and structures to encourage, enable and track the effectiveness of learning activities. Adept at face to face course delivery, and always enjoying excellent feedback, Beth is also accomplished at online delivery and created OnLive Learning in response to the challenges presented by the 2020 Covid-19 restrictions.Beth has written extensively for LexisNexis on subjects such as Performance Management, Managing Change and Stress Management. Away from her training delivery she is a published author writing about local history, hiking, wildlife and the outdoors and is...

Web page updated on 21/05/2026

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