Implementing an Information Governance Program
Information Governance is gaining a lot of traction in the marketplace, and recently I came across an interesting and relevant blog post about implementing an information Governance program by Rick Wilson at Sherpa Software. They have created an Information Governance frame work called “Corporate Information Governance Program(CIGM)”. Their CIGM framework, was derived from “ARMA principles and IGRM(EDRM’s Information Governance Reference Model) and they offer a sound Structural Framework, but the CIGP Methodology also factors in Real-world expertise in execution”.
As you can see, their Corporate Information Governance Program comprises of 4 distinct area’s which are:
- Understand and Access
- Plan and document
- Implement
- Manage
The first of the 4 part series is about the “Understand and Accessing” phase of an information governance program. Within this phase they have identified 5 different steps which need to be addressed at the beginning of the project and they are as follows:
- Identify Stakeholders & Project Sponsors
- The white paper defines the stake holders and project sponsors role and responsibilities and get into detail as their involvement in an organizations Information Governance intuitive.
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Understand Business Objectives
- One of the key points of this white paper is to make sure that the team has a good understanding their organizations business objectives as these objectives affect all parts of their business as does their Information Governance initiative.
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Understand User needs
- They go on to say that understanding their user needs tend to be neglected or have limited analysis to an assessment of the technology that their users use and that user training is a very important part of a successful Information governance implementation.
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Inventory Information & Systems
- The inventorying of the information and systems/tools used to accomplish this task can often be a real challenge for organization and they recommend that you rely on the expertise and experience of your stakeholders as they have firsthand knowledge of what information and systems you have in place and suggestions on what to do to improve the processes.
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Identify IG committee Participants
- The information governance participants have different roles to that of sponsors or stakeholders; their prime concern is with authorizing their teams to perform the CIGP process and to have a good understand of what information exists and the importance of that information within their organization. For example: they would determine what information is business critical or what could be disposed of, they would provide feedback on information lifecycles and policies, user training and recruiting other team members from different parts of the organization. In essence they would act as a trusted advisor to the various teams.
Conclusion:
After reading this white paper it gives you a much better understanding on how to begin an Information Governance project. Rick states that there are 3 main items to remember about the Understanding & Accessing phase of the project and they are:
- It is becoming an important strategic objective for any organization to manage their corporate information assets and in particular for those organizations who are in highly regulated industries
- During this phase it is important to establish the project structure, develop relationships with your team and getting preliminary view of the information your organization has.
- Focus on creating the right teams and gathering all the pertinent information about the project and don’t be too concerned with the “how” at this stage of the information governance process.
Please share this information with your colleagues or send us your questions, comments and feedback to: waynes@flexnet.com. Additionally, if you would like to download a full copy of their Information Governance white paper, please click here or you can find more information governance resources on our web site www.flexnetsoftware.com and we look forward to answering any Information Governance questions you may have; please contact us at 1 (800) 263-8733
Implementing an Information Governance Program