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Organizational Readiness for Change with an ERM Program/System

By Carl Weise posted 04-18-2012 12:41

  

A big part of the success of your information management program is the readiness of your organization to adapt to the new policies and procedures that will be required.  An assessment of this readiness can be conducted by studying your corporate culture, structure, processes, communication models, leadership styles, and even vertical industry influences.  This activity is best carried out when you are first identifying your business and system requirements, since that’s when the strongest endorsements, or objections, are likely to be expressed.

Many times, a SWOT analysis (strengths-weaknesses-opportunities-threats) is beneficial to gauge people’s reactions to the more concrete issues it showcases, and, thus, to identify areas of possible resistance. This is especially important to do, perhaps in simplified fashion, when working with end users since the impact of the new system on them – and their response to it – will be central to its ultimate effectiveness.

The state of your organization’s governance practices is another factor that can affect the ability to manage change since good governance boils down to consistent and considered control, and control is something not many people are comfortable with changing or relinquishing.

Governance is a culture of accountability to which employees at all levels – senior executives, business unit managers, end users, and IT, records, and legal staff – must be committed.  Otherwise, the best technology and the best-considered guidelines will mean little, and operational standardization and compliance will both go out the window.

Achieving governance requires the establishment of an organizational structure to guide, oversee, and arbitrate the process.  Populated with representatives from all areas of organizational life, the list of responsibilities is long and generally includes:

  • Establishing policies and standards, including implementation methodologies, development platforms, and integration protocols so everything works together the way they’re supposed to
  • Prioritizing projects, starting with the most achievable as defined by feasibility, impact, or sponsorship (in other words, who wants it)
  • Enforcing rules and providing a conduit to executive authority for final judgment
  • Maintaining best practices through shared vocabularies and standard operating procedures
  • Establishing a measure-and-improve mindset by capturing metrics and analyzing query logs and click trails to identify areas needing enlargement
  • Integrating the handling of taxonomy, metadata, user interfaces, and search to ensure they all work together for usability, compliance, and proper tagging to facilitate automation.

Good governance requires that all of these tasks be undertaken and in an organized way. These tasks will not all happen overnight, though, so breaking it into smaller pieces – and perhaps assigning those pieces to smaller subcommittees – is a good approach.

Since even the best-laid plans can go awry at times, it is critical to build troubleshooting resources into the plan so people running into snags have a readily-identifiable, confidence-inspiring route to follow when seeking solutions.

These resources should exist on both the business and technology sides of the house, since issues are likely to crop up in both areas.

• Business issues may include the likes of not understanding a new process, having to follow updated compliance procedures, or utilizing new metadata tags.

• Technology issues, on the other hand, may include the likes of interface confusion (“where do I go to find X?”), search mechanisms and terms (especially if there’s a new taxonomy in use), permission management, or even out-and-out software debugging.

Implementing an ERM program or system will require developing new ways of working with ERM solutions.  Centered as it is on addressing human nature, change management is one of the more challenging program/technology implementation tasks, as it is focused on taking a structured and controlled approach to transforming the values, priorities, and behaviors of individuals so they align with and enable the defined future state of your operations. Understanding the readiness of your organization to adapt is critical.

What are your thoughts on carrying out an early assessment for change management within your organization?

Tell us about your success stories in change management.

I will be speaking at the following events:

April 24th– 27th, 2012 AIIM ERM Masters in Amsterdam, Netherlands

May 8th– 11th, 2012 AIIM ERM Masters in Silver Spring, MD

May 15th, 2012, AIIM ERM 1-day Practitioners in Las Angeles, CA

 



#ElectronicRecordsManagement #ERM #InformationGovernance #ECM
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