I think this depends on who "we" and "our" are in your statement Fred.

We as RM Professionals have the ability to recommend and hopefully influence
our organizations decisions on RM issues, but (and this is especially true
in private industry) the business of business is BUSINESS, not Records
Management.

To the extent sound RM practices support the bottom line and serve purposes
that improve how a business operates, this is true.. but frequently the case
is made that the rigors of "perfect RM" require additional effort and costs,
and slow down business processes and do not add requisite value.

In cases such as these, many organizations either develop a 'good enough'
philosophy and/or determine how risk tolerant they are wiling to be and then
push back against "RM for the sake of RM"... the area we see this in more
than any other is the manner in which many organizations, both private and
public, decide to manage their e-mail.

Establishing limits on time retained or volume levels for retention
regardless of content, 'keeping everything' in a digital haystack, utilizing
third party storage providers and in some cases, their proprietary software,
are just a few of the measures taken that are very risky, but many
organizations do one or a combination of these things.

A professional association can develop all of the guidance they want, but if
they do so in a vacuum and they aren't seen as speaking for business, that
doesn't mean the guidance will be followed or have any weight.  If not
designed with the rigors of a Standard, and especially not done with
consensus, it won't even be measured against... its' more of  story stick
than a yardstick.  http://bit.ly/gAvLxJ

RM needs to be seen as a value added proposition if a common set of
practices will be adopted, but as most of us know this is NOT a 'one size
fits all' proposition.  What works in some industries does not work in
others.  It depends on how you are regulated, what State, States or
Countries you operate in, who you serve (clients, etc), and how your work is
measured.  Even in the Federal environment where 36CFR has existed as a
REGULATION for decades, there is absolutely no consistency between Federal
Agencies, and there is low adoption of the requirements because they are
seen as too restrictive and too costly to implement.  Look at the various
GAO and IG reports over the past 5-10 years alone.

Soapbox put back under the counter

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

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