Legal and compliance professionals often face challenges in managing complex projects, such as drafting contracts, policies, or procedures. These professionals are frequently time-poor and may not have the opportunity to apply structured project management techniques. Software engineering offers valuable lessons that can be applied to the legal and compliance fields. This article explores four key areas where legal and compliance professionals can benefit from adopting software engineering principles: mapping requirements, managing complexity, version control, and quality control.
Mapping Requirements
One of the key principles in software engineering is the importance of thoroughly mapping out requirements before beginning a project. Software engineers develop a comprehensive understanding of the functionality, user experience, and design of a product before starting development. This process involves identifying the needs of relevant users, understanding constraints such as resources and timelines, and creating a plan to complete the project.
Legal and compliance professionals can adopt a similar approach. For example, when tasked with developing a new policy or procedure, compliance professionals should not only consider regulatory requirements but also engage with relevant stakeholders. By understanding existing business processes, internal limitations, and constraints, they can ensure that the final policy is both effective and practical. Software looks at both form and function. Software engineers understand that there is no point having amazing functionality unless users can access and understand it. Again, user experience and design are two areas that legal and compliance professionals can focus on to ensure effective outcomes.
Managing Complexity
Software projects often start with a simple set of functionalities but grow in complexity over time. To manage this complexity, software engineers break down processes into manageable components and stages. They also document their work by adding comments to their code, explaining the purpose and functionality of each component. This structured approach helps manage complexity and ensures that future developers can contribute effectively without being hindered by ‘technical debt’—the accumulation of design or implementation shortcuts that make future development difficult.
Similarly, legal and compliance professionals face increasing complexity as regulatory frameworks evolve. For example, when implementing a compliance management framework, it is essential to design it in a way that allows for future development. By breaking down documents into manageable components and avoiding unnecessary complexity, professionals can ensure that each part of a contract or policy operates effectively both independently and within the broader context. Additionally, having a set of guiding principles for drafting and reviewing documents can help mitigate the risk of introducing complexity that could lead to problematic outcomes later.
Version Control
In software development, version control tools such as GitHub allow developers to track changes, manage different versions of code, and ensure that only approved changes are pushed to the production environment. This process ensures that there is always a clear record of the current version of a project and its history.
Legal and compliance professionals often face challenges with version control, particularly when multiple stakeholders are involved in drafting or reviewing documents. Without a centralized repository, it can be difficult to determine which version of a document is final or which version was in effect at a particular time. Implementing a version control system, such as a document management tool, can help solve this problem. For example, our Compliance Hub allows users to upload new versions of documents, assign responsibility for review and approval, and automate the version control process. This ensures that all stakeholders have access to the most up-to-date version of a document and can track its history.
Quality Control
In software development, unit tests are used to verify that individual components of a codebase continue to function as intended, even as new functionality is added. These tests help ensure that the software remains reliable and effective over time.
Legal and compliance professionals can apply a similar methodology by developing a range of potential scenarios and testing how specific clauses or provisions in a document operate in each scenario. For example, when drafting termination provisions in a contract, legal professionals could consider various triggers for termination and examine how the provisions would function in each case. This approach helps ensure that the document achieves the desired outcome and remains compliant with relevant regulations.
Conclusion
There is much that legal and compliance professionals can learn from software engineering. By adopting practices such as requirement mapping, managing complexity, version control, and quality control, professionals can improve the effectiveness and clarity of their work. These principles can lead to better collaboration, clearer documentation, and more efficient project management. Future articles will explore these concepts in greater depth, providing further insights into how legal and compliance professionals can benefit from software engineering methodologies.
