Good information systems need good foundations. Who would try to build a house without establishing proper foundations? And who can design a house without a basic knowledge of home building or architecture?

This blog focuses on a back-to-basics approach to some fundamental information management challenges. It is a forum for discussion and insights into the essentials needed to create best-practice records, information and corporate knowledge systems. What makes an IDEAL information system - a system that supports business performance and delivers recordkeeping compliance. We welcome your input!

Still more evidence to support investment in good information management systems

Posted on May 25, 2011 by Conni

The LexisNexis Workplace Productivity Survey
1,700 white collar workers in five countries – the United States, China, South Africa, United Kingdom and Australia – were asked about their experience of, and attitudes towards, information in the workplace. The study reveals that information overload is a remarkably widespread and growing problem among professionals around the world, and one that exacts a heavy toll in terms of productivity, performance and employee morale. Some snippets from within the report: Continue reading →

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Information management issues in the maintream media

Posted on March 7, 2011 by Conni

I found this Special Report on Managing Information from the Economist (February 2010) while waiting for a takeaway recently. The series of articles makes facinating reading. You may need to register to read all the articles, however access to a limited set is free.

Continue reading →

Posted in Business Case, Disposition and Retention, Information Governance, Metadata | 1 Comment

“It’s time for Information Governance”

Posted on January 6, 2011 by Conni

This timely article by Barclay Blair is the first in a series about Information Governance published this week in CIO Update. It provides good definitions and examples of information governance and helps to establish records management’s part within the bigger information management picture.

http://www.cioupdate.com/insights/article.php/3917496/ITs-Time-for-Information-Governance.htm

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More ammunition to support the business case for investing in information governance

Posted on December 21, 2010 by Conni

This report into ICT attitudes to recordkeeping highlights the need for better collaboration between records managers and ICT professionals. The report was based on a survey conducted by the NSW State Records Office. Continue reading →

Posted in Business Case, Classification, Disposition and Retention, Information Governance, Metadata, System Design | 1 Comment

DIRKS Methodology still delivering key elements for RIM architectures

Posted on November 9, 2010 by Conni

In 2002, the International Standard for Records Management (ISO 15489) introduced a methodology for the development of records classification schemes and retention schedules. This methodology, known as DIRKS (Designing and Implementing Recordkeeping Systems), evolved out of the Australian Standard for Records Management AS4390 (1996).

The DIRKS methodology is based on traditional system design methodologies which have been adapted for the records management environment. The step-by-step analysis described in DIRKS examines many organizational facets – structure, environment, stakeholders, processes, inputs and outputs.

In many ways the DIRKS outputs can be likened to the DNA of an organization. DNA is the molecule that encodes genetic information in the nucleus of cells and determines the structure, function, and behavior of cells. Similarly DIRKS describes how an organization is structured from the broadest functions to the minutest detail of business activity.

Steps B and C of the DIRKS methodology deliver a framework for identifying and linking essential recordkeeping elements within connected metadata structure.

• Step B is the analysis of business activity resulting in the identification of business functions, activities, tasks and record or document types.
• Step C is the identification of recordkeeping requirements for each class of records based on the analysis of sources (i.e. legislation) and stakeholder requirements.

From this analysis, many of the facets needed to create the tools required for RIM systems can be brought together along with other taxonomy/metadata facets to build file plans, thesauri, retention schedules, access and security models, and workflows definitions.

The DIRKS methodology has been around now for nearly a decade. The tragedy is that the RIM industry has been slow to realize the benefits of the connected DIRKS framework in that it provides real opportunities for automated retention management. However we believe that the tools are now available to prove the model and it is possible to build an information architecture that utilizes DIRKS to its full potential. More about that later.

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The value of Metadata

Posted on September 30, 2010 by Conni

One of the best chapters I’ve ever read about metadata can be found in Darin Stewart’s book Building Enterprise Taxonomies. To quote Stewart:

Metadata is a hard sell. It is expensive to create and difficult to maintain. Executives have a tough time understanding how the problem of having too much information to manage can be solved by adding on yet more information. Metadata is a bit of a “hair of the dog” solution. We add a little information to make a lot of information more usable. As to the expense, the answer is, or course, pay now or pay more later; sometimes a lot more. A few minutes tagging a document can save hours hunting for it later.

In Australia government agencies have been subject to a range of metadata standards i.e. the Australian Commonwealth Standard for Recordkeeping.  Metadata standards been incorporated into eCM systems to deliver “recordkeeping compliance”.   In nearly all cases, business users have been expected to input recordkeeping metadata.  Much effort involved. Yet so little effort has gone into providing metadata for business use – i.e. metadata that will help business users find, filter, group or sort information.  eCM developers have not seen fit to deliver functionality for adding, connecting  and leveraging metadata.

It’s hardly surprising that business users opt out of records management systems and create their own information management systems.

I believe that SharePoint’s enormous popularity has been because it has given control of metadata back to the business users, hence the proliferation of team sites and databases. However an absence of controls wrt metadata leave SharePoint users with the same old problems in other systems – what may be a good set of metadata for one set of users is not necessarily going to benefit the organisation as a whole.

As Steward says, metadata provides best value for money when it is controlled – i.e. when it is created and used consistently, at a user, enterprise or global level, ensuring that everybody is speaking the same language.

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Classification – more than just searching

Posted on September 3, 2010 by Conni

Some of my favourite lines about classification are from Organising Knowledge:  Taxonomies, Knowledge and Organisational Effectiveness by Patrick Lambe. As Patrick says:

Taxonomies are at the same time deceptively simple and fiendishly complicated.  They are simple because they are absolutely basic to human consciousness, so everybody manipulates and creates them with great ease.

Taxonomies are complicated because we use them for the most part unreflectingly – they are simply part of our mental and social background- and we use categorise in a hyge variety of ways, often in competing and inconsistent ways.

Different people with different tasks will order their knowledge assets differently to suit the tasks they have to do…

Our clients can and do categorise continually. They are confident about knowing how to sort things out . But they are not skilled at conscious, strategic organisation of their knowledge assets to suit collective tasks.

When it comes to records and information management (RIM) systems Lambe hits the nail on the head. Classification schemes are more than just search and retrieval tool. We need them to achieve a whole range of purposes including:

  • Aggregation of content (grouping records together for business or evidential purposes)
  • Browsing and navigation
  • Access & security management
  • Disposition management
  • Filtering  and segmentation
  • Managing provenance
  • Reporting

Web research confirms a renewed interest in classification (taxonomies and metadata). There are a whole raft of new taxonomy and metadata products available, including those inbuilt into eCM systems like SharePoint 2010. However the marketing blurb suggests that the purpose of classification schemes is in the delivery of improved deliver search and retrieval.  Little is said about the theory and discipline of building classification schemes.

Both Lambe and Stewart in their books address the need to understand how different criteria are needed for different purposes. Lambe (Organising Knowledge, 2007) lists the following criteria (facets) used to classify content:

  • Business activity i.e. functions, activities, processes, transactions
  • Subject matter i.e. products, services, disciplines, domains, assets
  • Names of people and organisations
  • Aggregation i.e. cases
  • Record or document type
  • Geographic  location
  • Time or sequence

The issue taxonomy developers face is that there is no single criteria which is able to realise all of the collective classification needs of the organisation.

The following matrix illustrates how different classification criteria (or facets) meet different needs. Some meet the aggregation and retrieval needs of business users, others meet compliance needs of the organisation. The art of building effective classification schemes is to identify all of the organisation’s classification needs and to weave them together into an IDEAL information architecture.

Synercon Classification Matrix

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Defining an IDEAL RIM system?

Posted on August 7, 2010 by Conni

RIM systems are complex beings, often over-engineered, commonly dysfunctional – as far as end users are concerned. Most established RIM systems have been shaped by compliance requirements and “industry” standards (more about this in another post).  Lack of usability is a common theme. End-users are opting-out of the record keeping process– anecdotal evidence suggests that uptake and acceptance of RIM systems is low because the systems are not meeting business needs. After 15 years of RIM implementations (mostly unsuccessful), many Australian organizations are taking a fresh look at system design. There is a move away from prescriptive functional requirements and a move towards systems which deliver business functionality. New case studies are emerging traditional approaches are eschewed.

One of our pet projects is the development of an IDEAL set of functional requirements for RIM systems. IDEAL requirements address five usability concerns: Integration, Description, Effort, Arrangement and Linking, not necessarily in this order. In this blog we are attempting to define a set of IDEAL requirements to benchmark against. We welcome your feedback.

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