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Information Survey Recommendations

By Carl Weise posted 08-06-2010 11:27

  

Below are some recommendations for running your information survey. The steps are just guidelines and need to be adjusted for each case.

Step 1 – Define the Scope

Establish the scope of the survey

Limits on time and resources may require the scope to be reduced along the following dimensions:

The whole organization or a subset of offices, sites, or countries?

Electronic content and/or records only or legacy hard-copy documents and/or records too?

Just unstructured data or structured data too?

E-mail holdings?

Step 2 – Define granularity: Collections

Key points to decide:

At what granularity (detail) will the survey be conducted?

How much information will be collected?

Granularity, according to how content and records are stored:

By file

By shelf

By filing cabinet

By 'collection'

Step 3 – Define granularity: Users

Granularity according to content and records owner:

By functional area

By department

By business unit

By team / workgroup

By individual

Step 4 – Define metadata to be collected

The metadata that will be collected in the survey will depend on its scope and granularity

The bare minimum:

Content and records title

Unique identifier (for survey)

Location

Description

Important additional info:

Owner

Volume

Format(s)

Purpose

Other existing copies

Value

Rate of growth/shrinkage

Frequency of use

Uniqueness/overlap

Use by other units

Organization

Completeness

Retention

Sensitivity or classification

Step 5 – Determine how to best understand the business processes, activities, content and records

Pragmatic approach – study the flow of work:

Where does the work come from?

How is the task assigned?

How does the task file develop?

How is the file closed?

How is it indexed for later access?

Where is the file kept?

When is it destroyed or archived?

Paper process vs. electronic vs. hybrid

Look for information gaps

Step 6 – Determine appropriate information survey techniques

A small but dedicated team with authority from Senior Management

May be just 1 person

Three main techniques:

Questionnaires

Face to face visits

Automated data collection

Technique A: Questionnaire

Primary technique, but:

Rarely comprehensive

Frequently biased

Content in two parts:

Open questions

Matrix: record types vs. sources

Distribution:

On paper via the internal mail

On-line launched by an e-mail link

Technique B: Team visits

An authorized team visits workgroups to:

Discuss and document their content and records holdings

Review:

Their information needs

Their current difficulties

Possible areas for improvement

Conduct:

One-on-one interviews

Workshops

Focus groups, led by:

The project team

User representatives trained by the project team

Technique C: IT tools

Analysis of network statistics online

Volumes of files and e-mails

Identify owners by volume

Uncover duplication

User analysis tool

Step 7: Determine best way to analyse findings

Large volumes of data will be produced

Software support is essential

Spreadsheet?

Database?

Specialist application?

Prepare the software beforehand

Factors for success - how to undertake an Information survey

Design the survey

Including data collection and analysis techniques

'Sell' it and communicate well throughout

Test it and modify the design

Do it for real

Thereby gathering data and establishing what each business unit does and how the work flows through it

Analyse the results

Identify content and records for migration / deletion

Classify paper documents and records by frequency of use

Link documents and records to core business processes

Simplify the file structure

 

Tell us about your experience in carrying out an Information Survey?

What factors lead to your success?

What obstacles did you have to address?



#ECM #ERM #ElectronicRecordsManagement
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