Nolene/Brian,
I'm more focused on the Content management side and this has been the
case for the last 10 years, but records management comes up regularly in
my customer work.
Nolene, you absolutely have the right idea in thinking of the big
picture, and ECM being a "pipe-dream" is a cynical statement in my view.
But its very challenging when you have to bring different business
groups together and building consensus.
I definitely believe that poor planning and unrealistic expectations are
a reason for ECM failure, but to be successful you must have top-down
support ($$$) as well as bottom up (this is pulled up by the middle
managers and analysts) if this makes any sense.
This, in combination with a core project/ECM group that has support from
IT, and the business side is extremely important. Once you have this
you end up having to "evangelize" ECM for months on end. Doesn't sound
easy does it? I'm going through this process right now in a much
larger, and challenging environment so your comments are top of mind for
myself as well.
I know of many successful ECM installations that I'm not at liberty to
discuss in detail, but across the board, they have at least 5-10 full
time people managing the ECM infrastructure alone ($$$).
Regarding the metadata/folder argument, this is an extremely common
point of contention in all ECM implementation, but it comes down what
people are used to (folders), and what is optimized (metadata searches).
I don't believe the two are mutually exclusive, but as with most things
in life and work, we need to adjust.
Jason
-----Original Message-----
From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Starck, Brian
Sent: Wednesday, September 02, 2009 8:19 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Enterprise ECM Truly Possible?
Nolene, we are going through the same thing right now. It all comes
down to people, processes and technology working together. In our case,
identifying and nailing down the processes has proved quite difficult.
Can we truly establish it across our entire enterprise? Probably not.
We have such a wide range of needs from bus operations, maintenance,
light and commuter rail, and we're in the beginning stages of a $7
Billion construction project. Each of these areas has such different
needs. However we are trying to minimize the number of systems that we
have.
Like you, I've been skeptical of the whole rely on the metadata (tags)
concept of finding things. People have grown up and are very
comfortable with folder structures. I'm starting to see the value of
metadata vs a complex filing system though. Will probably settle on
something in the middle with a simple structure and rely more on
metadata than we have in the past.
Good luck and let me know if you want to talk further off line.
Brian Starck, CRM
RTD Document Control Manager
[log in to unmask]
303.299.2177
-----Original Message-----
From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Nolene Sherman
Sent: Tuesday, September 01, 2009 10:01 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Enterprise ECM Truly Possible?
Folks may recall that I was hired a few months ago to develop a
records management program from scratch, with the goal of having most
of the active documents managed electronically. The company had
absolutely nothing in the way of a file plan, retention schedule,
standardized language, etc. They couldn't even say where all their off-
site records storage was without doing a bunch of research first.
Well I have been busy crafting a file plan and developing a records
inventory. All the while, working with IT and our litigation counsel
on deploying an email archiving program (started before they hired me)
and trying to reign in another IT group who was barreling forward
looking at ECM programs and another one trying to develop a home-grown
records management system. I think I have managed to get everyone to
slow down and consider the bigger picture. I have been very careful,
talking to business units about their needs and discovering just how
many disparate systems we have (we are a very big company), gathering
or developing all the information to make sure that we have a clear
idea of what we need vs. what we want and how we want an ECM system to
work for us. However, as I am doing research, I keep coming across
articles, blogs and the like that say that a true enterprise-wide ECM
is a pipe-dream -- that the best bet is line-of-business or other more
focused deployments.
My question to you: Is enterprise ECM -- especially for very large
companies -- just not possible, or have most ECM deployments been
sabotaged by poor planning or unrealistic expectations?
If the latter, do you know of any exceptional, successful ECM
installations? If it is a matter of having my ducks all in a row, what
do I need to do to make sure my little quackers toe that line?
One other, slightly tangental, question. I don't buy-in to the idea
that e-docs don't need a structured plan since they can be just be
tagged and found by a search engine. But I don't quite know, in
developing a file plan, where are the differences, if any, between
what is needed for paper documents and e-documents? I'm starting from
scratch here so I can build it just about any way I need to.
Mucho thanks for any input you can offer.
Nolene Sherman
[log in to unmask]
Tracking where records are kept is what Tiggers and Records Managers
do best!
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