On Fri, Aug 29, 2014 at 6:56 AM, Gary Link <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Have any of you audited any of your records department's own processes? -
> records destruction process, retrieval-refile process, etc.? If so, what
> resources did you use when developing your audit plan? Did you create a
> formal audit charter?
>

A few thoughts on this:

Seeing as this is an internal self-directed process, where you are looking
at your "central" or "distributed" records department, the assumption is
you're looking for collaborative participation, rather than a combative
experience.

The term "AUDIT" is a bit unnerving to many people... it's sort of like
seeing the red lights flashing in your rear view mirror.  I've found other
MUCH more receptive to the concept of an an "ASSESSMENT"... you can even go
as far as to call it an operational assessment,  so others know WHAT you're
assessing.

For this to have any value, you'll need to have some form of charter or
structure, and for the outcome/findings to be objective, you should enlist
an external (to the RM Department) source to perform the assessment.

The basis should be your policy, program description and/or procedures.  It
should call out major functions and the roles and responsibilities related
to the processes being assessed.  And as you perform your assessment of a
function, you should look to see:

 - if it's being performed as described,
 - with the frequency called out,
 - by the person/position assigned that role and responsibility.

Self-assessments are a GREAT opportunity to evaluate processes and to look
for gaps, but they also provide an opportunity to improve upon your
documented procedures.  Sometimes, the feedback you receive includes
comments like:

"We haven't done it that way for months/years because it didn't work"
"We don't do that anymore because the person/position who did that doesn't
exist"
 "We do that differently because it was more effective/efficient"

Many times a Policy, Process Description or Procedure are written and never
evaluated or 'dusted off' to see if they still work correctly, to suit your
organizations needs. This is part of why it's important that this happens
in a collaborative, rather than punitive setting.

The views presented above include a couple of different perspectives- one
is that of a Program Manger who has had this functional area's processes
assessed, and the other is that of a Consultant whose role included
performing initial assessments of RM Departments, with the goal of finding
things that needed fixing.

Findings written should include what was looked at, what was found, the
risk it created (if any), what the gap was and a recommended course of
action to repair the gap.

Good Luck

Larry
[log in to unmask]

-- 


*Lawrence J. MedinaDanville, CA RIM Professional since 1972*

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