AIIM Open Forum

The Challenges of Business IT Documentation.

The costs for IT documentation increase – but the quality doesn’t meet expectations. In many companies, even the most basic IT decisions can no longer be made on the basis of sufficient information: documentation has a per unit value only and barely covers requirements.

The reasons for this insufficiency are many – but can mostly be found in three main areas. Firstly, there is a cultural issue, which is further exacerbated by a stubborn tool affinity in IT. Then there are methodical deficits, which have a particularly negative impact in this environment.

Cultural Issues

Documentation – or shall we say information management – is completely disregarded in IT. A culture of hoarding prevails over the habit of sharing. Large parts of information is therefore inaccessible or only exists in the heads of the people involved. Best case scenario: there is a document management for individual purposes – but never an inclusive information management. The creation of new information is an afterthought and may at best be subjected to formal quality standards – but none with regards to content. Collaboration in IT is built on individual knowledge and personal exchange. Collaboration with suppliers and customers is limited mostly to email and phone communication.

Tool Affinity

In IT, the emphasis is always on tool decisions and implementations being the final step in a process. How is it then, that this is almost always the polar opposite in information management and documentation? Endless lists of user and team data shares, countless Wikis, SharePoint implementations and the collaboration tools that are cropping up everywhere and in almost all companies are proof of one thing: nobody is truly committed to developing a unified information management for IT. Instead, enthusiasm is limited only to the implementation of new tools.

Methodical Deficits

IT has absolutely no methodology in place when it comes to information management. Even the simplest principles that are a matter of course in other areas of IT are not applied. Here a few examples:

• There is no requirements management. New information is formally created for every purpose.
• There is no information governance or only on the basis of formal criteria.
• Anyone can publish information, everything seems important and is weighted equally. Information retrieval seemingly follows Google’s approach but no assessment criteria are applied.
• The more, the better. The common view and understanding is that increasing volumes of documents also improve quality. Generally, however, the opposite is the case.

IT Information Management as a new Methodical Approach

The defects outlined above can most certainly be remedied with a systematic approach going forward. But what to do with the “digital landfill”? How do we sift valuable information from the flood of information – or simply said: how do we create order? 

IT information management must be taken on an entirely new course to get a handle on the digital landfill. IT can learn from other approaches to overcome methodological issues:

• aiim methods in business information management
• tekom methods in technical documentation

aiim methods in business information management: the Association for Information and Image Management (aiim) is a non-profit member-based organisation. aiim offers training and further education courses, as well as market studies and research data in the area of information management. aiim also offers certification programmes for information professionals. The key methods that should be used in IT information management include

• “Capture” (including analytics)
• “Information Governance”
• “Categorization/Classification Scheme” (taxonomy)

The focal point here should be the capture of existing information.

tekom (Gesellschaft für Technische Kommunikation e.V.) is a trade and professional association for technical documentation. Its objective is to promote information and knowledge exchange, as well as the training and further education of its members, while underlining the significance of technical communication in companies and in the public sphere. Here, we mainly focus on standards for technical documentation (e.g. iiRDS) as blueprints for IT information management.

As stated above, IT information management can learn from both worlds. Our emphasis is on transforming the “digital landfill” in IT documentation into a state where only necessary and valid information is stored in an “ordered structure” (taxonomy) and is subject to a process of information governance. Two method approaches are available:

• Capture, Evaluate – incl. the use of analytics
• Create

Capture, Evaluate

According to aiim, “Capture” is the method of collecting information at its source and including it in a formal information management process. In terms if IT information management, that means that existing documentation is captured and then evaluated in terms of its relevance and quality. As a last step, the information is then forwarded to an information portal.

Create

In contrast to “Capture”, an approach focusing solely on the “Create” method will initially leave all sifting and evaluating by the wayside. Only objectives like scope and structure (taxonomy) will be defined. Responsibilities are defined and assigned across all levels (accountables and responsibles). Responsibles are the individuals responsible for content and it is up to them to either create new content that satisfies requirements, or to use existing content that complies with quality requirements. 

Conclusion

Choosing between “Create” and “Capture” is basically the same kind of decision we often face in everyday life: repair or renew? The following questions will help us decide: in what environments will the strengths and weaknesses of the two approaches come to bear? Where will which approach be suitable? What could a hybrid approach look like? 

The following decision criteria will help answering these questions:

• Quality and scope of existing documentation
• Stakeholders and stakeholder goals
• Derived scope
• Structure and number of accountables and responsibles
• Planned project runtime

Business IT rarely deals with an “either or.” Documentation is rarely universal in scope, quality and accessibility – or none of these. Quite the opposite: information is readily accessible in some areas and inaccessible in others. Some is worth “repairing”, other information should be renewed instead. Business IT will have areas in which the Capture (+ Evaluate) approach makes little sense but also those where Capture (+ Evaluate) using analytics will at least provide some clarity in terms of the quality of what is available.  

No matter whether you choose “Capture” or “Create” – the important point is: the stakeholders and their objectives as well as the scope and responsibilities must be defined before you make a decision.

Authors: Gregor Bister, Jennifer Gitt
 

Publications on IT Information Management: