Many of us have tried and in some case struggled to figure out a good structure to be put in place for enterprise wide information governance within an organization. In my opinion we should simply mimic the National Football League!
I welcome guidance/input/suggestions from the many senior professionals who have been in this field long before me…
Here is my analogy…
Company Executives, C Levels, or even Senior Directors of specific business functions are like the owners of the 32 teams we have today in NFL. They are ultimately responsible for their individual teams as Senior Directors or Executives are for the business functions under them.
Information Management department or business function is like the League office. They have the job to lay down the policies and rules that brings governance to the game of NFL including players, teams, equipment, etc. They are also the enforcers of these rules. They do not work for any particular team but they dictate common practices that need to be followed amongst all teams. The employees of the Information Management department can be responsible for one or many business functions depending on the size of the organization.
Director of Information Management is like the commissioner of NFL. He/She runs the league office but also reports to all 32 owners of the teams. He/She will create and enforce governance rules as needed and obtain the buy-in of all the owners to lay down these rules. He/She is also responsible for the Information Management department or business function. Depending on the size of the organization this department’s employees will also have specific career ladder all the way up to the position of director.
Each of the 32 NFL teams have someone who is a liaison with the league office. They report to the team directly but are in constant touch with the league to make sure that the governance rules laid down by the league are being followed within their particular team properly. They escalate questions and matters up to the league office when it gets beyond their reach or expertise. This is a concept for having Information Coordinators and/or Data Stewards within the business function or department. Depending on the size of the business function or department there could be one or more such employees. The difference between Information Coordinators and Data Stewards is as clear as ECM vs EDM. One manages unstructured content (both physical and electronic) and the relevant metadata, the other manages structured data within their business applications along with the true source for the metadata required by the unstructured content. They work together when their paths cross with respect to information management. There are instances within a particular business function where you may require one or the other or just one employee playing the role of both. Their careers are managed within the department or business function they reside in. However, they do have a developmental path to jump to the league office or the information management department/business function should they choose to.
So what about Records Management group? There is a strong argument that the records management group may reside under the umbrella of this information management department/business function. That is entirely possible. Some may argue that it belongs under the Legal business function. Nothing wrong with that either.
So there! We now have an enterprise wide information governance model within an organization that works just like the NFL!
#InformationGovernance