Due to the myriad of changes in technology, content and data management are becoming an increasing challenge in the private sector as well as government entities. These challenges are due to an increased volume of data flowing throughout an organization, leading to an increase in the velocity of change. This increase may expose various vulnerabilities within an organization’s information governance framework.
The focus of information professionals is to reduce the volume of information stored while keeping it manageable and accessible. Because of this focus, Steve Studer, Sales Director for ASG Technologies, posed the following question to the audience, “How do you organize information in a manageable way and still maintain the integrity of the record?”. In addition, Greg Wilson, Director Content Services for ASG Technologies, stated that data silos continue to impact productivity, affecting the work, processes and content of data within your organizations. Because of the various data silos within organizations, Mr. Wilson stressed the overarching problem of managing various forms of data on different systems.
At this point, the presentation transitions to how an organization evaluates its information governance posture. During this portion of the presentation, Mr. Wilson used the Information Governance Maturity Model to show the audience a way to frame the state of their information governance within their organizations.
One key takeaway from this model is to ensure an organization is managing the retention of records throughout the various levels of the model. According to Mr. Studer, this model is multidimensional because parts of your organization may be at different levels of information governance. For instance, the state of the records in your finance department may be at a level 4 according to this model, however, the records in your IT department may be at a level 3. Overall, this model will allow you to assess the state of information governance in your local government office/state agency, and how to improve your information governance posture.
To summarize, when assessing the state of information governance within your organization, you must take the following into consideration:
- Electronic Records Retention Policy
- Auto Classification of Key Records
- Management of Obsolete Records
- Management of Processes
- Policy-First Approach in Managing Data/Content
As information technology continues to change, we must remember that success is a moving target. As information professionals, we must remain focused on data/content management to allow for the continuous accessibility of the information.
