In the last two posts I provided an overview of the two primary theoretical models used by information management professionals to help design and develop their information governance (IG) projects. I then focused on the two specific models and how they have been adopted by organizations undertaking IT-related projects. This week I'm looking at how aligning process with strategy can help ensure your objectives, strategy and operational requirements are addressed.
One of the big sticking points to actually engineering a successful IG project is aligning the right people with the right job, which in turn informs how strong or weak the process components will be. Simply installing software and thinking it will provide you with a comprehensive solution is as foolhardy as thinking that you can prepare for and win a marathon by carbo-loading a few days before the event. What's required is a balanced set of technical, process and project management resources that can understand and inculcate the strategic vision into an operational reality that is fully adoptable and sustainable by the organization. Framing these types of projects with a good model is a good start but aligning your resources, company vision and technical strategy is equally important in energizing the project and giving it the gravitas it will need to evolve into a full-scale enterprise operation.
CA developers and engineers have done a great job of designing records management, message management and discovery tools that can integrate data and information assets across a variety of platforms, repositories and enterprises, while structuring a security model to help protect confidential data and preserve its authenticity, reliability and integrity. But that alone is insufficient in designing and implementing a comprehensive information management program that provides organizations with transparency, quality data, risk management and governance tools. The missing component, of course, is process aligned with the technology. Good process is designed from the ground up by people at the top who communicate clearly their organization's vision and strategy. The best organizations then provide their operations teams with compliance and enforcement mechanisms that will allow an information governance program to take hold and drive the manner in which the organization's information assets are managed, structured and delivered.
The model below represents how important and fundamental it is to organizations to align resources and technology in the formation of a comprehensive, streamlined information governance solution.
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Synchronizing the technology and process efforts requires an understanding by all stakeholders involved that their roles and responsibilities are shaped by a series of continual and sometimes contradictory activities. The people involved with creating and managing active data are rarely, if ever, involved in that data's final disposition unless they also play a decision-making role in that dimension of the asset's life. Understanding your corporate culture, what your organization creates and delivers and the parties responsible for those activities begins to give you an idea of how to model, align and develop your information governance strategy. Examining and assessing the existing tools, policies and processes in place is paramount to understanding how to coordinate and develop an information governance strategy going forward that will integrate smoothly with your already structured programs.
Today's business, educational and government institutions are large, complex endeavors that contain and manage a vast array of information management tools, including knowledge libraries, eDiscovery, content management, email archiving, records management, practice management, data mining, collaboration and risk management applications. Failure to understand how each of these tools operates independently and as integrated, federated models undermines your ability to compete in the marketplace and worse, puts you at risk from a regulatory and legal perspective.
So before you begin or revisit that information governance project think about what it is you actually want to accomplish. What is your organization's overall strategy and vision? How can information governance play a role in supporting that vision and critical decision making? What tools, resources, processes and workflows do you already have in place? Are these mechanisms working as you intend or are they putting the enterprise at risk both commercially and legally? How can I align my resources and processes to be reconciled with my organization's vision and strategy? What will emerge from this exercise is a definitive charter and plan. You will realize as the philosopher John Locke once said, "As people are walking all the time, in the same spot, a path appears."
In next week's installment, I will write about data persistence and what we can do about it within an information governance framework.