What Larry said. And then some!
Unfortunately, this is pretty common. IT, Legal, Management and Functional
Users all have their own goals, agendas, and requirements. And seldom is it
adequately documented ahead of system decision-making in a full scale
enterprise-inclusive Requirements Document (RD). Take what people saw in
vendor's demos and thought might be nice, and then combine that with the
documentation of the system failures that will follow, and you have the
basis for starting a good RD. Way too late!
Keep asking them during the high-level discussions:
1) "So, how do we implement policies and place a complete hold on requested
types of information in both electronic and paper format". IT will not have
a clue and Legal will say "We are going to rely on you to do that! Go work
with IT."
Or
2) "If the email is copied to the email archiving system, what do we do with
the original records, or which ones do we produce as authentic records for
court?" They will get irritated that you are asking more annoying questions,
so ask them "Will Legal and IT produce all of the records from the systems
or the archives, so the users don't have to produce any?" Then they will get
the idea that they are taking on a responsibility they had not planned on.
Or
3) "If the system we select based on the Gartner recommendation causes us
problems during litigation, can we hold Gartner accountable, and just sue
them?" "Or will the court consider our system selection and records
confusions and losses to be our decision and our responsibility" Now they
will begin to see the ramifications of their stampede to system selection.
Bug them with "reality" questions all the while implying that they are
taking on a responsibility with every decision they make until they realize
that it is in their own best interests to do a real RD. And expect that
neither Legal or IT will really want to do anything but their narrow part,
leaving the complete document to you.
Its usually possible to show that the Gartner study:
1) Completely ignored major obvious requirements like managing paper and
e-Records.
2) Does not actually assure that current email and other RM policies and
procedures will be addressed.
3) Is usually slanted toward "leading edge" technology concepts that have
few to no actual implementations. (Ask the vendors for references to current
implementations and there will be NONE. Then ask IT if they will risk the
organization's future on that.)
4) Ask how the factors in the Garner study relate to your own organizations
priorities - could be a mistmatch.
5) Ask SPECIFIC questions that show how remote and high level the Gartner
study may be. For instance, "Gartner says that SOA is the way to go with
leveraging technology infrastructures. Do we have a plan to actually do that
now? No? Then why would we value them recommending a product that leverages
SOA?" (Or substitute another functional/technical spec for SOA leveraging.)
Bug them to death with little doses of reality until they give up and turn
creation of the RD over to you! At least document issues and reservations
throughout the process so they can form the basis for an RD for getting new
software once the current software implementation fails.
In summary - CYA.
John
********************************
John T. Phillips
MSLS, CRM, CDIA, FAI
Electronic Records Management
Consulting, Education, Research
Information Technology Decisions
www.infotechdecisions.com
865-966-9413
-----Original Message-----
From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
Of Larry Medina
Sent: Friday, June 19, 2009 12:17 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: RAINdrip: CREW obtains copies of White House e-mails
On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 8:49 PM, Nolene Sherman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> What is it with IT and Gartner -- it's like their bible. "According to
> Gartner, this software was the best" seems to be the only
> justification they need. I've run into this several times where a
> decision was made or pushed with the only justification being it's
placement on a Gartner graph.
>
> I'm scrambling right now to present alternate choices for an ERMS. A
> VP at our company read a Gartner study and contracted with a
> well-known ECM vendor to do a "vendor-neutral" needs assessment.
> What's the chances that the assessment will tell us we need only what
> they can supply? Our legal department was pushed to purchach a email
> archiving solution, which then had to pair with an e-discovery vendor,
> because the company was on Gartner --- even though the legal
> department preferred another more robust EDMS vendor that could do both
and more.
> Aaaaaargh!
> Nolene Sherman
> [log in to unmask]
>
> Tracking where records are kept is what Tiggers and Records Managers
> do bes
Your job is to convince them that the object is NOT TO find a 'product'
first, then try to fit it to your business needs, but rather to assess your
business needs and then evaluate products available to see what is in the
marketplace that provides the functionality required to meet your needs.
Best case, it will be a product that can offer the functionality and meet
the requirements in a 'native environment', that is to say that it does it
within the product without the need for third-party add on products. No
problem if you may need modules they offer directly to reach the end state,
but it's best if the module is THEIRS, not that of another vendor, trusted
partner or not.
The problem with bringing in a vendor to perform an assessment, beyond what
you've identified already, is they won't have sufficient knowledge of the
practices and usage patterns of information assets i your organization...
and what will end up happening is what ALWAYS happens with Consultants in
this type of 'hit and run' engagement... you'll end up paying them to read
your watch and tell you what time it is. =) So much time will be spent
schooling them on how you do what you do, they won't be making
recommendations based on anything other than what they already know, and as
you said, what they can supply.
Larry
(BTW, cool email address Nolene =) )
--
Larry Medina
Danville, CA
RIM Professional since 1972
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