What approach to strategy would work the best for framing up exactly what Information Management is all about? And how can we use that framework to do more than just identify a vision and mission?

Tough question

There are so many, SO many different approaches to strategy out there today and many of them are successful in so many different ways. So, how to choose?

I would be lying if I said there was some grand, scientific, deductive effort that whittled down the entire field to the one perfect choice. It didn’t happen like that, exactly….

The problem area

What DID happen was that I looked at the problem area – “Information Management across an entire enterprise”. I did what so many of my professors in college and beyond have told me to do – “spend MORE time in the problem area”. I did that. I spent a ton of time thinking through all the different tools, technologies, concepts, functions, cultural aspects and business impacts of what Information Management efforts effect. I quickly came to the conclusion that the problem area is an enterprise-wide one and it’s not easily quantified in one fell swoop.

Narrowing

Once I knew that I was dealing with an enterprise-wide, functional strategy with both technology and business scope, my research became more focused. I started looking at industry leading best practice strategy approaches. By “industry-leading” I mean, “front of the pack” and not so much an energy industry-specific technology strategy methodology.

Leverage consulting partnerships!

I spent time with both senior Accenture and IBM consulting resources who both advised I, of course, follow their methodology. The problem with following their strategy methodologies was that they were very focused in one area or another (e.g. ECM or ILM specifically). I needed something broader, with both the flexibility to define a corporate direction for a widely-defined technology and business problem but also, the specificity to delve all the way into the details of individual themes of initiatives (ECM, RM, Backup, Retention, etc.).

These conclusions led me closer and closer to very comprehensive-yet-flexible strategic frameworks – and some of the more scholarly set of folks.

Too competitive

I spent time looking at various newer strategic toolsets, blue ocean strategy for example. Many of them, however, are too focused on competition. Something a regionally regulated monopoly need not focus on as directly as, say, a product development company.

Too abstract but, maybe useful..

I then spent time falling back, as many do, on the best strategy consultancies and attempting to take a page from their book. Bad idea, sorta. Much of what I found from Boston Consulting Group and McKinsey&Co was summarized from findings in specific industries. While looking at the case studies prepared by these firms, I did find a couple common threads that led me ultimately to where we are now – “Strategy Maps” and “Balanced Scorecards. You see, these 2 concepts have been deployed just about everywhere you can imagine and have helped companies achieve great results. Naturally I was curious.

Now we’re talking

Once armed with these 2 approaches (a)(b), I was able to hone-in on exactly who authored them (Kaplan&Norton), what they were about and why they were important. I was ecstatic that I was much closer in my quest.

Bulls-eye!

When I first set out to find a strategic framework for Information Management, I was overwhelmed. Well, that’s an understatement really… Daunted is more appropriate. I had never done more in the strategy consulting space then to do my level best to work within a strategy and challenge that strategy wherever appropriate, benevolently of course.

Now I really had something. I knew the authors (Kaplan&Norton) and I knew the publisher (Harvard Business Press) and I searched further for something that might tie these 2 approaches together in a meaningful way. I got lucky. Heck, I got really lucky.

While searching around for other things, more recent, that these 2 authors had collaborated on, I stumbled across a book called “The Execution Premium” here. What a great find! This book not only explained the concepts of strategy maps and the balanced scorecard approach, it also brought the vision, values, mission (VVM) exercise into focus along with concepts and plans for operational, business area and employee alignment!

I know, maximum strategy geekdom achieved right? Right.

What this means is that I was able to find the one book that brought together all the concepts of strategy, from visioning all the way through to operational excellence, in one very organized and interconnected way. Eureka!

Conclusion

Well, suffice it to say that the book and the methodology within have proven extremely helpful in my IM/ILM strategy work to-date and I look forward to using even more of it’s frameworks/tools/concepts as we go forward.

Now, how many times have executives agreed that yes, it’s a great idea and yes, go ahead and deploy it? Probably very few.  To be fair, executives have probably been skeptical more than dismissive in most cases.  My thoughts here are that most feel that collaboration and social media technologies are more disruptive and time-sapping than another other technology out there.

Confusion Abounds

Clearly there is much confusion as to the value proposition of collaborative technologies or, what we frequently call “social media technologies and tools”.

I’m not going to enumerate the various and sundry components of the value proposition for all of these technologies. Chances are, you know most of them already.

A different goal than most: “Can’t we all just get along?”

I propose here that we all take a fresh look at how Collaboration and the related tool sets available for deployment can additionally transform the way groups within any organization actually interact on a regular basis.

How many times have you been required to work with another group and not understood their processes?  How many times have you been in this situation and thought that maybe, just maybe they don’t even know their own processes?  I’ve been there many times, and you probably have as well.

Is this because that group members don’t care to know?  Typically not – quite the opposite.

Is it because the group doesn’t have any processes defined?  Not usually.

Is it because this team doesn’t have a central, consistent place to define and display their processes so that the team can find them easily and consistently?  MOST likely.

Why don’t we use Wiki’s for this???

Why don’t more teams have processes defined, displayed and consistently available to even their own team members?  Wiki technology is available just about everywhere nowadays.  If Share Point is deployed, you’ve got Wiki capabilities easily enough… If not, freeware is out there for this stuff right?

The reason: Established behaviors drives us.  All leaders up and down any leadership chain know that their processes are in need of repair or, more diplomatically said, are “fluid” – always changing until they reach nirvana.  Is this a bad thing? No.  Is this something that most strive to keep opaque to others?  Yes.

By nature, we all like to get better but ironically, also by-nature, we don’t like criticism and tend to be defensive.

Current thought process in many organizations: “Is it bad to expose the fact that all processes can be improved?” “How can we possibly think of “airing dirty laundry” as anything other than negative?”

This is the crux of the additional value of collaborative tool sets.  This is the place where an organization can and must change it’s behavioral characteristics – corporately or in a grass-roots way, if they are to become top performers.

Much of this argument has already been made and can be found fully explained in a book written by Andrew McAfee that I have found very valuable recently; http://www.amazon.com/Enterprise-2-0-Collaborative-Organizations-Challenges/dp/1422125874/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268068962&sr=8-2

This is the “Model 1 versus Model 2 Behavior” argument/discussion and proposes that, using collaborative tool sets to expose a group’s processes to a MUCH broader audience is the most effective way of  making those processes better.

The argument/discussion made about Models 1 and 2 go much further in McAfee’s book to discuss the way an organization can leverage Model 2, specifically, to expose the “Liar’s Club” within an organization and also benefit from large groups collaborating on critical business concepts/processes/etc. via the concept of “crowd-sourcing”.

Conclusion

There’s much confusion out there today about collaborative tool sets and social media/technologies.

There’s also pervasive culture in the corporate world today that actually encourages defensive behaviors and, most importantly, information hiding.

To be effective in our businesses, teams, groups and individual efforts, we can adopt collaborative and social media tools.

To take it to the next level, to challenge the status-quo performance and results expectations, we should look at exposing the fact that we can’t possibly know everything.  If we do this then we can directly seek the knowledge of the group/crowd in an organization and reap the rewards of continuous refinement.

We have only to take the leap, lower our fear of rejection and remove resentment from the equation and we’ll realize true value across the enterprise, via collaboration.

>>>>>> Metada: information about information

What is metadata and why is it important?

Metadata is a way of characterizing information by users, or systems, providing more attributes surrounding that piece of information.

exhibit A: Information Class

In order to be able to assert any archival or retention rules onto a piece of information, it first much be classified. This is one excellent example of metadata and its importance in information management goals and objectives.

Why do we need to manage it? and at what level?

Why manage it?

We must manage metadata because we really do need other, consistent ways of describing information that is stored within the information management systems we are deploying. Without a metadata function, as part of a broader information management strategy, we cannot leverage the full value of the information we manage.

What level?

Do we manage metadata at a business unit level? Do we manage at a business area or divisional level? The corporate level?

All the above

Of course, a comprehensive metadata model requires deep thought, many voices and opinions incorporated and, ultimately, a support structure. That said, a comprehensive information model also requires acceptance and adoption by all user groups affected.

Ultimately a strategy is required for a comprehensive metadata model, in order to explain just exactly what we are attempting to achieve and how we plan on doing that.

What does industry say about metadata?

AIIM believes that “it is imperative that employees use consistent metadata – descriptive terms, to identify their physical and electronic records” and blogs about it here

ARMA also states “Information value is derived from the usefulness of the data” here