That's correct. They do a great job of managing the information that  
they capture and produce for their title reports and policies, but  
their own corporate records program is non-existent. One interesting  
tidbit I found is that assistants have been diligently logging almost  
every file created, but there is no real structure to it or rules on  
what they call things. When they run out of space,  they just have the  
attorneys look over everything and say what can be boxes and when it  
should be marked for destruction. But I don't think anyone has  
actually ever gone back and ordered a destruction. They have Chron  
files back from 1996.

I developed a records inventory my first week, then found out about  
the inventory. I figured I'd manipulate that into some order and get a  
good idea of what they have first, and see if a preliminary file plan  
presents itself just from what they already have. Then I could ask  
specific questions about usage and other factors not gleaned from the  
data. I'm already seeing obvious groupings.

Then I have to write the Records Management Policy as well, and  
develop training .... again (although I can use a lot of what I  
developed at my last employer after tweaks). I need to get started on  
general RIM training right away since they are implementing an email  
archiving/eDiscovery platform within the next few months. We're  
starting with some very generic mid and longer term series to capture  
record emails until I can develop the retention schedule.

I came across a 2006 IMJ article by Tina Torres about process based  
retention schedules (as opposed to departmental or functional) (http://tinyurl.com/map6ap 
) and thought it sounded like a very intriguing concept. The company  
has only a few lines of business, so I thought that this may work for  
them. Has anyone done this? My experience with functional schedules is  
that some people just can't quite understand that some of their  
records may be in one function and others in a different one, but when  
the function aligned more cleanly with a work process nearly everyone  
could fine "their" records in the grouping. Because the company is in  
the midst of streamlining it's divisions, I really don't want to mess  
with a division/department schedule since that is in flux.

At the same time, I'm going through MoReq, 5015.2 and ISO15489 to make  
up sort of a "wish list" to start discussions with end users to get a  
feel for how we might want to structure a EDRMS. I figured I'd end up  
with an "in an ideal world, it would work this way" scenario to get  
some initial response from likely vendors. I would certainly welcome  
suggestions or input on how others have started this process.

Whew!

Nolene Sherman
RIM Practitioner since 1996 (gone wonky since 1998)
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P.S. Peter, I hear you've made a bit of a change with work yourself?


On Jun 9, 2009, at 6:01 AM, Peter Kurilecz wrote:

> Nolene
> thanks for updating the list. From the original job posting it  
> sounded like the company did not have a RM program at all. Is that a  
> correct assumption?
>

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