We all strive for it, but effective Information Management can mean different things to different organizations. For example, many IM experts believe that there should be a central owner of company information, while others argue it should be equally shared among departments. Do you agree? In your opinion, what are the characteristics of an ideal IM structure?
October 21st, 2009 at 8:27 pm
To derive information from a corporate data.
October 22nd, 2009 at 12:02 am
Hi,
A fully centralized model rarely work; most organisations are still in “silo” mode and each departement still believe that they “own” the data (as opposed to the data being owned by the organization). Therefore, the implementation of a fully centralized ownership will only create chaos and conflicts no matter if there is a huge change management program to support the implementation of a centralized ownership.
In order to obtain committement and collaboration, ownership should be distributed among departments but nothing prevent the creation of a corporate data governance committee where each owner is part of the committee and where the corporate orientations and principles are defined and agreed upon, including the compliance aspects of information management.
Departments are the ones that really know what they have and what they’re working with; they should also be the ones that apply the various compliance and regulation toward data.
My 2¢
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Effective information management is the ability to allow all staff to contribute to the corporate knowledge, information and data (the corporate memory) to benefit the organisation. Standards and procedures should be applied centrally (so everybody can communicate with one another) but systems should support effective intellectual capture at source.
I think of it being a bit like an orchestra… you need a good conductor, (we have control), you need some music ( in the correct key for each instrument – the procedure), and we have lots of contributors who can apply the standard. Finally, for those that have that extra flare, it’s great to have a soloist who can interpret and add a little bit more. Control and freedom!
October 22nd, 2009 at 6:16 pm
In short: an optimal IM structure is one that leaves the users of data with a high quality set of data, that reflects one version of the truth. And presents these users to a transparent organisational structure and set of procedure for handling ILM issues. In short I do not agree with those that thinks “one size fits all” scenarios, but some fundamental structures needs to be laid out, and accepted as is. In my company we work along a methodology, where we create a foundation within 5 perspectives: Mission, Architecture, Technology, Organisation, Policies. These perspectives drives program-related (or company wide) rules of behaviour, but within e.g. the EIM (Enterprise Information Model), and Governance principles we adopt the framework to each client.