Document & Records Management Needs Assessment

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Keywords: ERM, Document Management, Assessment, ECM

By ,

January 24, 2012 - 5:58 PM

Hi All,

   I've taken on a new mission where I've got assess and discover the document & records management needs / capabilities across several sites of a large organisation. My approach has to be unbiased, in other words, the solutions I represent can't be considered during or mandate the directions of the assessment.

  In summary, the main goal is to help our client identify the current-state of their Document & Records Management practices as well as deliver valuable information for investment prioritisation, process improvement initiatives, compliance management and for the organisation’s document & records management roadmap.

 I've already reviewed ISO/TR 26122:2008, ISO 15489-1:2001, MIKE2 and AIIM best practices but still couldn't a clear pathway for my project that goes down to "how-to". Most of them are very high-level, therefore serving as general guideline.  I'd appreciate meaningful insights to assist me in this task.

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Submitted by

Why not use the GARP chart? You can assess all of your sites using GARP's rating scale. Not only will you be able to objectively assess all of your sites, you can also show where the organization, as a whole, is performing well (or more liklely poorly)as well as local (sites) strengths and weaknesses. Nice way to prioritize an action plan too.

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Submitted by

I agree that GARP is a useful set of principles to assess organizational policies and practices in the RIM functions; however to do a more technical assessment of systems/applications/"sites", I recommend that you look at the various standards -- DoD 5015.2, ISO 16175, MoReq2010 and the RMS specification from Object Mangement Group (OMG). We've reviewed them all are recommending a composite of core elements from the four.

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Submitted by

Personally these standards become more of interest once you know your clients requirements and needs in more detail.

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Submitted by

Totally agree that the organization's requirements/needs must be understood first. I was trying address Carlos' request for ideas on how to determine "a clear pathway for my project that goes down to "how-to". These standards are all about how a system holding critical records must perform in order to meet RM requirements.

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Submitted by

Exactly, the point is that what I was after were ideas on how to map those requirements/needs across the organisation without being too vague. I don't want to gather requirements from scratch but instead, wanted to go out there interviewing people with a structured approach.

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Submitted by

A first step could be to place all the outputs and outcomes from your standards and best practice review into a spreadsheet and do the assessment against each line item to understand current state position and capabilities as well as to evaluate the residual risk inherent in each category. This will help to target your continued needs assessment to high risk areas.

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Submitted by

Hi guys,

Thanks all for your suggestions. My challenge had been to come up with a framework to apply during my assessment. In fact, what I did was to develop a methodology that allows me to ask questions related to the organisation, behaviour, IT systems, compliance. Besides, I ended up developing a 20-minute survey for pre-assessment application. Next step will be on site interviews. However, I'm still not sure on how to present a meaningful maturity map that can be used as a major input for the organisation's document & records management roadmap.

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Submitted by

I think this ECM maturity model may give you the right inspiration: http://mike2.openmethodology.org/wiki/ECM_Maturity_Model_(ecm3) You can adapt it to your needs as it is licensed under a creative commons license.

To be fair, I have not used this myself however at a first glance it looks a good starting point as my employers used to have their own models (which are similar).

If you can establish both AS IS and TO BE from the different sites/divisions/departments you should be able to analyze the generic needs (to be addressed on enterprise level) and specific needs (to be addressed per site/division/department). I suggest to present both aggregated and site/division/department scores.

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Submitted by

I, too, am looking for an assessment tool I can use for baseline assessment of where my organization stands, whther it's based on GARP or ECM3.
GARP is supposed to be available "Early 2012", and while ECM3 provides excellent information about ECM Maturity, I've yet to see a too that will help me discern where we stand.

I am unwilling (and probably unable) to write my own survey to get a statistically valid response.

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Submitted by

Hi James - a quick reply to let you know that the GARP Assessment tool will be available in Q1 of 2012 (within the next month or so). It is in final development after completion of beta testing.

For those who may be unaware of the tool, it is a saas-based assessment tool, based on the GARP principles and associated maturity model. It includes approximately 100 questions and can be deployed in flexible ways (e.g. how many respondents you can engage and/or how many times you can assess). It will include some base reports giving you GARP scores as well as access to the response data which you can then use in your own reports if you like.

Full disclosure - I am the Chair of the GARP Steering Task Force for ARMA International (which is why I know all of this!).

Good luck with your project!

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Submitted by

Hi All,

Just to share with you that I ended up developing my own methodology based on several frameworks, ISOs 15489, 26122, DIRKS, MIKE2, some of AIIM best practices documents and personal/professional experience. In the end, I created a maturity map in line with COBIT 4.1 but applied for a Document Management perspective.

Although it took me a lot of time to come up with this, it definitely helped me raise my own knowledge in DM/RM practices as well as now I've got something tailored to my business.

The challenge now is how to compile all the information I gathered in a meaningful, visually attractive, consolidated way! Also, there are a lot of interesting findings which won't fit into one single platform. I mean, there are common needs like sharing, security, version control, naming convention, metadata but on the other hand there are many specific needs for each department. How would you guys handle that? Any suggestion?

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