After recovering from the surprise, my thoughts turned to why this significant lack of planning exists within Records and Information Management.  Considering a variety of experiences with different organizations, managers, and business units several thoughts about planning came to mind that I thought would be worthwhile sharing with you. Most are based on personal experiences, observations, and what seems to work.

Observations that may have resulted in delayed Records and Information Management planning.

It seems to me many extremely knowledgeable individuals in records management, with advanced training and certifications from ARMA and Library Science degrees were considered (apologies in advance) “paper shufflers” prior to the emergence of information management and they spent a significant amount of their time involved in day-to-day operations. Many maintained a low profile, adapted to the day- today operation of storing records, and were considered a back office operation by executive management.

The RIM process received only enough attention from their company to sustain the process and avoid any issues with regulatory agencies or to avoid problems finding documents for litigation. This resulted in a plan and budget necessary to continue the process with little or nothing for improvements.

More recently, regulatory changes made senior executives responsible for their company’s records, electronic records grew, the Rules of Evidence changed to require rapid production of all records for litigation and suddenly the priority of information management increased dramatically.  The initial scramble was to make any changes necessary to comply with the changes, but very little planning was taking place.

Suddenly we observed requirements that the information manager transform from preparing a short term operations budget to a three to five year information management and continuous improvement plan requiring senior management approval.  Many information managers found this planning process difficult due to lack of experience translating information requirements planning into the language of business, lack of training, and a lack of experience dealing with senior management.

We further observed that many information managers did not focus on some of the key high level planning items necessary to produce a valid plan.

Observations of ways to approach your information management planning approach and process:

• Make time to meet with peer managers to discuss their three to five year plans and projects.  Business functions like Compliance, Audit, Security, Legal, and core business managers likely have plans or projects that require RIM participation and most joint efforts have a better chance of approval at the executive level. Legal is a particularly good candidate due to the need to suspend destruction of and produce records for Litigation discovery.
• Spend time examining your internal RIM process. Meet with RIM staff and gather suggestions for continuous improvement and other internal small projects that are primarily under your control. Make sure you include internal operational improvements, training for staff and clients, and service improvements for RIM customers. Yes I said customers, you should assume they can take their business elsewhere (even if they can’t) and treat them accordingly.
• Separate your projects into RIM continuous improvement, joint projects, and major projects internal to RIM. Describe each project with a short paragraph and assign a cost, risk, and priority factor. Review and document the alternatives for each project. Use extra care and absolute objectivity when you are rejecting or lowering the priority for a favorite project of yours.
• Understand and become very conversant with all projects, alternatives, costs, risks, and facts so you are prepared to answer questions from executive management regarding your plan. Finding someone to ask you questions about your projects to see if you know the material. This knowledge of and ability to speak to your plan cannot be overemphasized.
• Reduce the mound of material from all of the above to a compact and concise set of slides or handout. Your knowledge of the material and especially your response to questions eliminates the need for a lot of slides and will make the time and effort you spent preparing your plan obvious during any presentation.
• Review the slides with your manager and determine if they think a high level heads-up with a few of their peer executives is appropriate. If appropriate, update any of your peers that report to the executives your manager is contacting. One of your peers being surprising by their own executive commenting on your plan will rarely produce a good reaction. Politics 101.
• Practice, practice, and practice the presentation material.
• Consider use of a records consulting firm to assist with your plan. This approach is more costly but consultants make the process easier and you will learn the process for future revisions.

Hopefully these random high level observations started to get you thinking about some of the steps that may be missing from your approach to the planning process for Records and Information Management. Information Management planning is not easy so you can expect further expansion of these and other topics like continuous improvements shortly. To the 26% with plans, continue planning and getting better. To the 74% not currently developing Information Management Plans, let’s get started.

If you do not have a basic infrastructure in place for a Records and Information Management (RIM) plan see “Kick-Starting Your Information Management Plan.”

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