On 5/24/06, Hilliard, Mary <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> I have been avidly following the comments related to email policy
> because it is a subject which consumes much of my thinking time these
> days.  As we grapple with the issue and look for answers, the volume
> keeps growing and the concomitant headaches increase.  We are working to
> educate our users, but the hurdles involved in trying to find the right
> solution are not trivial.
>
> Randolph Kahn has published an article, on The Risk-Cost Model in the
> latest IMJ which appears to help an organization make a determination on
> which strategy best fits by weighting the costs and risks of various
> approaches to retention.
>
> I find the concept very intriguing and would like to hear from some of
> the other wise and experienced RM's on this list what your thoughts are
> on employing this model.  In case you haven't had a chance to read it in
> print, the pdf download is available free to ARMA members -
> http://www.arma.org/bookstore/productdetail2.cfm?ProductID=1807


I'd like to start by saying I have a great deal of respect for Randy and his
opinions on many topics in the field of RIM, and I know he put a lot of
thought into this article.  None of this content is "shoot from the hip",
and there may be merit to considering the approach in certain organizations,
especially ones that have NO RETENTION POLICIES in place at all, or those
that aren't highly regulated.

Much of what the article presents is the thought process used by IT and
Legal when faced with managing the ever increasing volume of records,
especially those in digital format.  Business types start thinking this is a
good idea as well when they see the mounting costs for hardware and storage
space for records, whether they're in paper or digital format.  And all
three "groan" when they have to face discovery requests with the volume in
the various repositories and the lack of proper classification and indexing.

I think the concepts presented bear consideration... but if your
organization has an established retention schedule and is applying it to a
large volume of existing records, it's difficult to even consider switching
gears.  And if you're heavily regulated, or if you work under the banner of
a Federal Agency (even as a Contractor), you're bound by certain
requirements that you have no control over.

As cited in the article, many (most?) organizations are doing a poor job of
applying their retention schedules to their electronic repositories of
information and this is largely due to the requirement for "human
intervention" in the classification process.  The same can be said for
applying metadata, which is even more disconcerting that classifying the
information for retention purposes.  Aside from some egregious
circumstances, the worst thing that could happen from retaining information
too long is it's expensive and it would take longer to go through it.  Most
of the cases involving judgements against organizations related to retention
were more for destroying information too soon rather than retaining it too
long, or knee-jerk reactions for destroying what was retained too long after
a case was pending (and the notable case here involved paper, NOT electronic
records!)

Work is being done to develop automated processes for classifying, such as
rules and role based classification and taxonomies are slowly being designed
by organizations to assist in these areas as well, but as I said before,
this is a "slow row to hoe".  Short of full text indexing and designing
complicated engines to review content to make determinations for proper
classification that need to be constantly validated and "tweaked" to address
anomalies, we won't be there for a few years (optimistically) yet.

I've got more to say about the article, but no time to go into it now... and
I'm sure this will generate some opinions and comments on it's own.

Thanks to Randy for making us think... and thanks to Mary for starting the
discussion.

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

List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance