AIIM Knowledge Center Blog

The Use of a ‘Model Office’

The Model Office approach to implementing an ERM system provides an opportunity to refine the ERM system before it is made widely available to large numbers of users.

It takes place in a specially-created physical location separate from day-to-day business activities.  It is a more controlled environment in which development, prototyping and refinement of the functionality of the ERM system, the revised business processes, the user interfaces and the training materials can be undertaken most effectively and with low risk to the business.

A Model Office is used to develop, test, improve and finalize all aspects of the new ERM system before moving towards implementation.

A Model Office may be seen as an ‘extra cost’, but it is very effective if the ERM requirements include the development of new business procedures and ways of working and the final environment is likely to be better-tuned to the organization’s requirements.
 
There are, of course, costs involved. While creating a Model Office is likely to incur costs, it may well save money and time later, as the subsequent implementation of the system is likely to run more smoothly and identify fewer problems needing solutions.

Costs fall into four main categories: hardware, software, support, and users' involvement.  Some ERM application software vendors may offer advantageous pricing for a Model Office, in the expectation of more business to come - it's worth asking.

Several benefits arise from adopting the Model Office approach.  It provides an opportunity for: technical evaluation of the system (proving its functionality and suitability for helping users and their involvement with records); finalizing the system configuration, functionality, and the details of the user interface.

It provides an opportunity for users to test the environment and provide feedback on its ease of use and any difficulties or problems encountered, so that the implementation team can refine the user interface (and associated training materials and ways of working) and finalize the configuration and the functionality of the environment.

With a Model Office, it will often be possible to examine more options and assess alternative approaches to meeting business needs – especially if they are somewhat complex in some areas.

You can also use the Model Office to develop training materials, including real screenshots and click-by-click instructions where necessary.

Overall, the key reasons for having a Model Office as part of an ERM implementation program are:

First, to minimize rework that otherwise would need to happen in the next stage.  It should be clear that it is highly advantageous to identify the need for rework, or reconfiguration, as early as possible, not least so as to minimize annoyance among what will always be a larger group of users in subsequent stages.

The second key reason for having a Model Office is to promote goodwill among the other users across the organization for the subsequent stages of the ERM program and how the organization will operate once the ERM system has been fully implemented.

By Carl E.Weise

Building an ERM User Group for the Successful Implementation of an ERM System

First, a senior management person who is appropriate to serve as lead user needs be identified and their commitment to the ERM and the project needs to be gained.

Such a person should be:

• respected and influential;
• a believer in the ERM project; willing to promote it among their peers and staff.

When this person is found, they should be fully involved and ‘nurtured’. That is, they should have everything to do with ERM and the project explained to them, including:

• what the project is trying to achieve,
• how the organization will look and feel once implementation is complete, and
• what the benefits will be.

Careful 2-way consultation and communication should be maintained with this person and they should be supported in regards to the ERM system.

Secondly, this lead user should be included on the Program Board to be the overall representative of all of the users.

And thirdly, an ERM User Group should be created under the Chair of that lead user.

Creating and working well with the ERM User Group involves inviting the appropriate people to join it. Working with the Chair of the User Group, invite others to join. The members of the User Group should cover the total organization.

The User Group should not have too many members – 10-15 is generally an appropriate number, depending on the size of the organization.

Advice should be taken continuously from the Chair, the Records Management function and the Senior Responsible Officer regarding membership. It should always be remembered that the ERM User Group is the Chair’s group.

Having created ERM User Group, the next step is to prepare and agree on Terms of Reference (TOR) for the User Group with the User Group itself and with the Program Board

The third step is then to educate the User Group. This involves explanation, consultation, communication and support.

Then the ERM Implementation team has to work with, and through, the User Group on:

• The specification of the current situation and the organization’s needs;
• The approach to the Business Classification Scheme;
• The testing of the candidate ERM systems; and
• The selection of the preferred ERM system.

By Carl E.Weise

Revised and New Business Procedures and Processes after Implementing an ERM System

Before Implementing the ERM system, a Pilot (and perhaps a Model Office) should have been used to check and refine basic ERM-related business procedures, as well as testing the user training necessary for them to be followed effectively with the new environment.

However, this is not the end of the story. Once users and their business groups have become familiar with the new ERM system, and are confident in their use of it, they are likely to suggest additional procedures, or significant revisions to existing ones, exploiting the new system even more effectively to improve business performance.

A need to develop new business processes – or revise existing ones – is a natural outcome of introducing an ERM solution, for the following reasons:

1) to ensure that it is used correctly,

2) that it is capturing authentic (and complete) business records, and

3) that it is actually providing benefits, both to individual users and to your organization generally.

No doubt your pilot system had at least basic procedures and processes defined for the new ERM environment. But it is likely that these will need some refinements in the light of experience of using the environment. Remember that most users will be unfamiliar with the new procedures and will need to be some way along the learning-curve before they can confidently use the ERM system and make suggestions for improvements.

The ERM implementation team will need to work with all groups, helping them to revise their business procedures in the light of the new system and procedures, and ensuring that any changes and improvements they want to make are functionality compatible with the ERM system.

By Carl E.Weise

Know the Flow

Many times, we start a project thinking we know how things work, who does what and why they do it. We take what we know in our heads to be true, and use this as the foundation when looking to implement a technology solution. Truth is we may in fact be enhancing a problem that we do not realize exists.

Before you begin any technology program, it is wise to walk through the underlying business processes that take place in order to accomplish specific tasks. In the eighties, many vendors talked about how document imaging would have minimal impact on the work environment and would enhance the workers activities through faster access to information. While the latter part of this statement is true, reality was that document imaging dramatically changed the ways people worked. The process had to change because we were moving form a physical paper world to electronic files stored on a computer. File rooms and clerks slowly gave way to imaging managers and scan operators. People could access information from their desktop without the need for some to assist in finding it. The process also had to change in how they shared or passed the information from one to another in review and approval cycles.

Today we still see similarities in that projects are begun without a clear understanding of what is going on in the business environment. In many cases, this is the cause of unanticipated issues and potential project failure. Most work processes or flows are the result of need and happen serendipitously rather than through a conscious design effort. Something has to happen, someone makes it happen, the result is the expected result and it stays in place as the way we do things. No one really knows why or how it began but id did and we do it that way today.

Start at the process and look at the what, how, and why of a process then ask if there is a better way to do it. Once you have made the changes and refined the process, look at enhancing it with technology that supports the process and opens the door for further refinement because, you guessed it, this is not a one-time thing it is a continuous practice and one that should be part of the overall culture.

Bob Larrivee - AIIM

. 

Monday Morning Quarterback

The game is over. It is now Monday morning, a time we get to reflect on what happened and discuss how if we were the team's leader, we would have changed things that we feel would have made the difference. Funny how we can look back at things and note what could have been done different, especially in someone else's world but it is difficult at times to look at our own situations of the present and not see those things that would make a difference now and for the future.

This is most true in business. We often look at those around us and see what could or should be done, much like a Monday morning Quarterback, but cannot step back to see what needs to be done in our own part of the business world. Rather than be that Monday morning Quarterback, why not be the Quarterback and lead your team toward victory. Victory over email glut and information bloat. Be the leader who sees the opening, takes the shot and scores big for the team.

As a coach, the first step to winning is the formulation of a strategy or plan to get you there. As a team player, the first step is to learn the rules of the game and train to win. In order to do this, you must find a place to teach you all you need to know about the game, the rules and the steps to achieving your goal of winning. In the realm of ECM, the place to learn is AIIM.

AIIM is the world leader in providing the training you and your team need to move forward, take charge and win in your battle of information control. Current courses focused on ERM (Electronic Records Management), ECM (Enterprise Content Management), BPM (Business Process Management) and IOA (Information Organization and Access) deliver the strategy, concept and process aspects of planning and implementing a complete environment that incorporates standards and places consistent controls over your information.

AIIM is dedicated to bring you the training you need to lead your team in information management. You owe it to yourself to get out of the Monday morning Quarterback's chair and get into the game by taking that first step onto the field with the best possible trainer in the game. AIIM.

Bob Larrivee, AIIM

Classification: One for Consideration

We classify things everyday of our lives. These could be cars, clothes, and more. We need to classify information as well, not just for the sake of storage but to maximize findability and gain consistency. The question has been raised as to what the best approach is in determining an overall scheme.

Typically, there are three common approaches to this question. We can classify information based on functional, subjective or organizational criteria. If we take the approach using function, it is easier to establish commonality and consistency across the enterprise as function is likely similar in all regions with the caveat that there may be some adjustment needed for regulatory compliance.

In short, the need to for a classification scheme and structure is real. The approach should be consistent, and agreed upon throughout the enterprise in a way that your users will understand, and is more likely to sustain and adapt to the inevitable, change.

Bob Larrivee - AIIM

8 Steps for Finding, Inventorying, and Analyzing Content

All successful enterprise information projects start with content analysis, and I thought I should share this 6 step framework with you for finding, inventorying, and analyzing content. This is from your new Information Organization & Access (IOA) training program that provides you with a practical step-by-step approach how to do this.

 

• Hypothesize
  • Make educated guesses about the content
• Sample and Audit
  • Look at a representative sample of documents
  • Use an spreadsheet or database “lite” to house information
• Analyse
  • Begin to group content into logical “buckets” or categories
• Inventory
  • Complete full list of all documents
• Clean up, Enrich, and Re-organize
  • May be done in different order depending on use case
• Migrate, if necessary
  • Then continue to assess and re-organize as needed

By Atle Skjekkeland.

How to change business processes to support an ECM initiative?

Most people do not like to change their ways of working, but the business benefits of an ECM solution are often linked to changing existing business processes. The new AIIM BPM training program concentrates on delivering to the trainee the skills and tools to do just that. In some regards, the BPM courses can be considered as the key consulting and analysis tools to best utilize ECM technology.

The BPM training program covers all the standard areas of general business analysis such as defining processes, identifying key stakeholders, modeling "As Is" and "To Be" scenarios, and how to test these (via technology and practice). These key areas should be considered from a broad perspective within the enterprise and in relationship with ECM. Business improvement will often not come from the exclusive use of ECM technologies, but by combining these with ERP systems, legacy applications, or other common business applications and processes.

While the goal of this course is to equip trainees with the basics of business process improvement techniques, we also briefly cover related areas including methodologies that make great use of such techniques. These include Six Sigma, Lean and TQM, along with some important historical perspective on the roots of BPM – with particular focus on BPR (Business Process Re-Engineering), lessons learned from that period – and direction on where the industry and requirements are currently headed. This will be particularly important as BPM provides the opportunity to make a radical change to a business, focused on outcomes not just on processes (unlike earlier methods that looked to the collective impact of multiple small changes).

I strongly recommend that all AIIM ECM Practitioners, Specialists or Masters take a look at the new BPM program for improving business processes linked to ECM. AIIM has classes schedule in cities all over the US and Europe, and the online BPM Practitioner and Specialist courses will be available September 10, 2007. For more information visit www.aiim.org/training.

By Atle Skjekkeland.

Why ERM System Developments Have A High Impact On IT infrastructure

The introduction of an ERM system into an organization often has a high impact on its IT infrastructure, with major changes required for key infrastructure components.  The impact is high for several key reasons:

• ERM often changes fundamentally the way people work and interact with systems, records, documents and other people.  Such fundamental changes need to be supported by an underlying IT infrastructure.
• The scope of an ERM program is often wide and usually constitutes a major change program by itself. It results in the need for:
  • New, or additional, IT infrastructure implementations or upgrades.  ERM programs can also result in an IT infrastructure rationalization exercise and can be viewed as an opportunity to address other organization-wide infrastructure issues as well as addressing the basic ERM IT infrastructure needs;
  • New, or improved, service levels.  Service Level Agreements (or SLAs) need to be understood early in the IT infrastructure planning process. Sometimes what can appear as a small change in an SLA results in large impacts in infrastructure requirements.  For example, the retrieval time for a record search may be set at less than 3 seconds in a call-center environment and this may quadruple the bandwidth required across an IT network.  This in turn may necessitate a physical network upgrade with significant project effort and associated costs.
• And the final reason is because, frequently, key aspects of IT infrastructure operations management need to change and this needs to be supported with both new infrastructure operations management practices and changes to the physical IT infrastructure environment.  For example, a new requirement may be identified where electronic records, which were previously not stored, now need to be backed up on a daily basis and electronically archived to an off-site location to be held for a period of a number of years.  Such an example would need key changes to the IT infrastructure operations management processes, operational management physical environment and potential acquisition of new off-site archive facilities and equipment.  Each of these components would represent significant infrastructure investments by themselves.  It is important for IT infrastructure to be included early in ERM requirements planning to ensure that the full impacts of any ERM system is understood and factored into plans.

In summary, an ERM system often has a significant impact on IT infrastructure, and that infrastructure needs to be considered early on in any ERM change program or journey.

By Carl E.Weise

Taxonomy: What exactly is it?

There seems to be a cloud around the term taxonomy. Either you know what it is or you pass it off as just another term created by analysts and consultants who want to keep their jobs.

Truth is taxonomy has been around since ancient times. The term taxonomy is derived from  the Greek word "taxis" meaning order and "nomos" meaning law or science. Thus, taxonomy is the science of classifying information. A taxonomy, is a law for classifying information. The ancient Greeks used taxonomies to classify things in the world around them in much the same way we do today. That is right; we use taxonomies in our everyday life. Think about shopping for groceries. How do you find things in the grocery store? You look at signs above the aisles or perhaps a listing placed conveniently in the grocery cart that presents various items to you along with their location but more importantly with their classification like dairy, produce, meat and poultry.

So you see, to understand taxonomy is to understand everyday life and understand that as humans, we classify everything whether we realize it or not. It is what brings order to potential chaos. It is what allows us to communicate using common terms and words or symbols. Therefore, the next time you are shopping and want to impress someone, let then know that you understand the taxonomies used by your grocer. If you really want to impress them, show them you know about ontology and folksonomy as well.

If you are not sure about those last two you will have to come and join us in our newly formed course focused on Information Organization and Access (IOA), where we discuss not only taxonomy, ontology and folksonomy but a wide range of topics and practices that will help you gain a much tighter control over the way you classify and control your business information. Even if you are familiar with these terms, I encourage you to consider attending anyway, as there are many aspects of IOA that are covered and discovered as part of the class. You may also want to consider the newly formed Business Process Management (BPM) course or our ever popular Enterprise Content Management (ECM) and Electronic Records Management (ERM) courses. Chances are, one of these is right for you, right now. Visit www.aiim.org/training and see what new and exciting things you can learn today.

Written by Bob Larrivee