Document Management

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Due to the volume of data that organisations and individuals are now expected to handle in their day to day work an emerging key issue in today’s information world is the issue of knowledge management in all its forms.

The purpose of this article is to introduce you to some of the definitions used for Document Management, Records Management and Knowledge Management and then to express the opinion that in broad terms, organisations have failed to address these issues adequately with the advent of technology and additional regulatory requirements. We believe as a result, organisations are exposing themselves to significant business risk which needs to be urgently addressed.

Document Management is the process of managing documents through their lifecycle. From inception through creation, review, storage and dissemination all the way to their destruction. Components include check-in/check-out of the data vault, release level maintenance, access security, promotion authorisation and version control.

Data vault

This is where data is kept safely. It is guarded against accident by being frequently mirrored and backed up, against spying and malicious damage by requiring access authorization and against confusion by requiring that only one person may be changing a data item at a given time. Check-in/check-out procedures guard the vault.

Check-in

The process of placing a new or modified Electronic Document Management System (EDMS) object to the data vault to replace the previous version (the EDMS may also retain the previous version). This procedure usually entails a review process controlled by the EDMS.

Check-out

The process of getting an EDMS-managed object from the data vault. This access may be for viewing, reference and use in another organisational requirements or tasks, or for making a change.

The planning, controlling, directing, organising, training, promoting, and other managerial activities involved with respect to records creation, records maintenance, use and reproduction, and records disposition in order to achieve adequate and proper documentation of the policies and transactions of an organisation, in order to meet its statutory requirements and facilitate effective and economical management of organisational operations.

A business process that formalises management and leverage of a firm's intellectual assets. Knowledge Management is an enterprise discipline that promotes a systematic, collaborative and integrative approach to the creation, capture, organisation, access and use of information assets, including the tacit, uncaptured knowledge of people.
(European Centre for Customer Studies - www.eccs.uk.com/resources/glossary.asp)

Knowledge Management should not rely on informal "water cooler" conversations, but on planned processes, technology, measurement techniques, and behaviours. Knowledge management leverages all the key resources that a company has in place and that can be put to use in a more effective way.

Organisations need to address these knowledge management issues today as failure to do so will lead to significant business risk in the context of possible litigation, penalties for failure to follow statutory requirements that they work under and danger of the "knowledge loss" when key people leave an organisation. It is not appropriate in many cases to address these issues individually as they need to be addressed collectively.

Organisations also need to examine how data is captured – eg from the web, from workers using applications and saving corporate data, from e-mails to and from clients, from other interaction with clients etc.

It is interesting to reflect on past practices in records management for example. Twenty years ago most significant sized organisations had dedicated staff to assist with the records management of corporate documents, predominately the filing of paper based records. In most cases the number of people doing this has dramatically decreased as the responsibility for records management has been devolved to individual branches, business units and even to individual workers.

This has been driven by diversity in that different business units are often required to work with different types of documents and under different statutory conditions. This has lead to an ad-hoc approach by organisations as a whole to the management of critical records which is often inconsistent. It has also lead to some staff that hold responsibility for key data not being aware of the importance of records management in the context of the statutory requirements that must be adhered to.

As a result, document management in many organisations can be a ‘nightmare’. We often see the same data stored multiple times in multiple locations. E-mails containing attachments of the same document are sent to multiple people, each of whom store their copy in different locations often on the same server. The amount of data wastage is significant.

The ability to locate correct documents can be a significant problem particular when people change roles or leave an organisation. Where multiple users need to contribute to a document, version control is also a significant issue. Even though some software (ie Microsoft Word) have document control features included in the software, it is our experience that very few people/organisations use these features effectively; indeed people are often not aware that these features exist!

Attempts by many organisations to streamline these processes with software have often proven to be too complicated because of the diverse nature of data required to be stored. The rules individuals need to follow for correct records management have not been adequately articulated to staff or have been confusing and too complicated for many staff to follow.

Knowledge management is a significant cultural issue that organisations need to face. Many organisations rely on the knowledge "held" by key individuals. The dilemma for many organisations, is that with the loss of one or more of these key individuals, significant pressure can be placed on that organisation. Even where key people are retained, the pressure that can be placed upon them due to their "corporate knowledge" can be destructive.

Successful organisations in today’s information rich world are those that better foster individual employees working as a unified team. It is increasingly becoming unrealistic for any one individual to have the necessary skills to perform certain complex tasks. This leads to an increased reliance on a collective team efforts. Of course if a team losses an individual it is highly likely that the team can still function quite effectively.

Of the three terms we described above, there is no question that Knowledge Management will be the biggest challenge faced by many organisations. Ironically though, by implementing strict Record Management and Document Management systems, and insisting that employees as part of their employment conditions adhere to these requirements (which are determined by the statutory requirements that the organisation/branch or section operate under) will directly lead to better teamwork and therefore a significant step towards an organisation of managing the issue of Knowledge Management.

To address these issues of Records Management, Document Management and Knowledge Management some of the key points that need to be considered are:

• Establishment of a knowledge-sharing culture. Harnessing the collective knowledge buried in records and documents is crucial for any organisation’s success.
• Implementation of a Document Management/Record Management system designed for the electronic age.
• Avoidance of the frustrations of working with a centralised Record Management model (if they still exist!). With minimum time and effort, organisations should be looking to implement a non-centralised, next generation records management solution that empowers departmental managers to set and control document creation, retention and disposition policies. It also needs to harness end users as active and willing participants in the Record Management process without the need to train them in complex Record Management disciplines.
• Reduction of storage "blow-out". Using current database technology such as SQL Server, and Oracle in place of native file and folder systems will eliminate 90% of the redundancy and document duplication that occurs with document copies and emails.
  (It should be noted that it is Microsoft’s intention with the release of their next generation of the Windows Operating System (codenamed Longhorn and due for release late in 2006) is to replace the current file system with database technology for storage.)
• Selection of a system that offers complete integration of corporate document and records store with existing key enterprise Client Relationship Management (CRM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) applications.

The Quill Consultancy has recently been working with clients on a couple of knowledge management solutions. We have been assisting Hydro Tasmania in the implementation of an Australian software product called 80-20 Document Manager; this software more than satisfies the issues raised in this article. (http://www.80-20.com/products/dmc.asp)

The second product we have been looking at is SharePoint Portal Server 2003. Whereas the first release of this product (version 2000) was disappointing and did not attract much attention, version 2003 appears to have resolved many of the issues and problems related with the earlier version. The downside for many organisations is that this product must run on the Windows Server 2003 platform although this of course could be a member server in either a Windows 2000 or Windows 2003 Active Directory environment. (http://www.microsoft.com/sharepoint/)

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