Ways to Establish eDiscovery Metrics:

Metrics are important to eDiscovery. These key performance indicators (KPIs) help fuel improvements, costs saving, and budget control for all eDiscovery processes. Many businesses measure and analyze data, but often they don’t have a consistent metrics program. Setting up a metrics program can feel like an overwhelming process. However, there are several ways to establish eDiscovery metrics.

Businesses should personalize their metrics to their own unique pain points. It’s vital to determine what is causing the business the most headaches, the most unreasonable costs, and using the most time. This is a great starting point to the entire process.

What are the most common issues? Some areas have a disproportionate impact. Meaning, when these areas are working efficiently then everything else is running efficiently. This also means if these areas are having issues then everything else suffers as well. Identifying an important task that needs improvement and measuring how that affects all other areas is the first step to recognizing other issues.

A solid partnership with the IT staff will help the entire process run smoother. Once a metric is identified, IT will help find the corresponding data. IT may also help pinpoint different challenges and metrics that were previously missed.

Monitoring KPIs frequently benefits long term goals. Consistently observing the data allows anomalies and issues to be caught right away. This can also help long term patterns emerge. Have a scientific approach to the metrics by analyzing what is driving those patterns. Has the per-GB processing cost greatly increased in a case? Then take apart the inputs to determine which variable caused that increase. Brainstorm the reasons that a change may have occurred then test that theory against the data.

Effectively measuring the cost and time invested throughout the eDiscovery process also helps identify inefficient such as antiquated software, overpriced vendors used for outsourced processes, and time-intensive manual systems. Also, processes that need to be improved will also be identified. Some of these processes could be deleting outdated and redundant data, automating legal holds, and preserving data in place. And, lastly, these metrics can be used to more accurately predict case timeless and more effectively allocate staff resources which saves businesses time and money.

 

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