On 2/9/07, Tom Owens <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> I am a list lurker.  dont tend to respond all that often.


Always nice to hear from a lurker... interesting to see what topics draw
someone out =)

With only 15 years experince in the RM field, I am such a new comer.


Yeahright =8^)))

 However I couldn't let Larry's SWAG for friday go unchallenged.  IMHO90%
> retained to meet cited legal or statutory requirement, would be high by an
> order of magnitute.


As mentioned in my initial response, I said the INITIAL retention is based
on some regulatory requirement.  That is to say that if it's "evidence of  a
business transaction", it has to be retained to meet a tax requirement or a
legal requirement to document a decision of some type.  The required
retention may only be for one or two years to satisfy a requirement to
provide support for an entry in an audit report or a tax filing, a hiring
(or non-hiring) decision, or some other business related event.  After that,
the record may be able to be disposed of "in the course of normal business",
and as you say it's a business rationale that kicks in to assign an extended
retention.

I doubt that even 30% of business records retention is founded on legal or
> statutory requirement.  Many more retention schedules are based on business
> rationale -- and sometimes that rationale is pretty weak.  but I would be
> interested to here from the real experts.


I think this number is WAY LOW... but let me qualify that statement a bit.
I'm speaking of RECORDS RETENTION here, not ALL information or documents, or
reference materials, etc.  Only things that can be defined as a record by a
business.... something that is evidence of a decision, transaction, etc.
that is required to be retained to support that.

Also, any time I've been involved in the development of a retention
schedule, it's been at the end of the process of completing an inventory of
existing record types and assigning those to an official "record series".
In the more intelligent efforts, these series are then divided along the
lines of "functions" an organization is involved in... across all lines of
business.  In other less well thought out cases, it has been divided along
the lines of organizational structure... which is about as solid as a Jell-O
foundation these days =)

Once this effort is completed, research is done to determine what regulatory
bodies impact the need to retain the records, and what the assigned
requirement is.  The name of the regulating body and the citation are noted
against the record series, and the required retention period is also noted.


On completion of this step, the user organizations are requested to weigh in
and determine if the required retention also satisfies their business needs,
and any potential needs that exceed those, such as research and reference
for future development.  This is noted along with the required retention, or
IF THERE IS NO required retention for a series, this is noted by itself.

Next is the legal review, which determines the potential risk of retention
of certain types of information, and any needs that may exceed a regulation
or business requirement for protection of intellectual property, rights, or
other interests.  During this phase, it's not uncommon for questions to be
raised about the users "desire" to retain some records longer than required
because they pose a potential risk to an organization (Microsoft and RJ
Reynolds should have considered this) and in a very limited number of cases,
the regulated requirement is also questioned.  Sometimes an organization's
legal or risk management function may decide that they would rather accept
the risk of disposing of information in a shorter period of time than it's
required in opposition to having it discovered and causing potentially
greater harm.  Any changes proposed to what the user population requests
should be discussed with them before moving on, but sometimes they aren't
negotiable.  Ultimately, a committee with representatives form all impacted
parties generally participates in any final decisions.

Finally, the organization establishes their formal retention periods and
disposition instructions for records, which may include "retain for x years
after reaching required retention for business purposes", "transfer to
institutional Archives for historic value", or "dispose of in an a manner
appropriate for the media and content included".

From that point forward, it's a matter of reviewing any established
requirements, identifying any new records series that appear and assigning
periods to them, and ensuring the retention schedule remains current.

So, some of this "stuff" (credit to Mr. Sanders of Oz) may only be retained
to satisfy a regulation for 2 years... but initially, the need to keep it is
regulated by SOMEONE.  That's where the 90+% came from... and like I said,
it's a SWAG... but it's RECORDS, not all information.

Others???

Larry
-- 
Larry Medina
Danville, CA
RIM Professional since 1972

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