Richard

Risk management should be part of an overall management plan, not just limited to records.  Records are but one way of mitigating risk.  

For example, finance has a risk that people will not pay their bills.  How can records help?  You can show that the invoice was actually sent. You can prove that final demands were sent. You can show that yes, they paid part of the outstanding amount, but not the full balance, etc.

There is an Australian/New Zealand standard for Risk Management - does the US have one?  I would be surprised if it didnt. That should enable you to get a big picture of risk management.

Business activities with a high level of risk may warrant a higher level of recordkeeping than activities with low risk.

Information about recordkeeping risk can be obtained from the National Archives of Australia DIRKS manual at http://www.naa.gov.au/recordkeeping/dirks/dirksman/dirks_A11_risk.html

John Lovejoy
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My own views, not my employers

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Davis [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Saturday, May 13, 2006 12:14 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [RM] Definition of records-based risk


I have been asked by our enterprise-wide Records Management Committee (made up
of high-level directors from finance, legal, IT, Records Management, Archives,
etc.) to help come up with a good definition of risk associated with record
keeping.  They would like a definition that could be applied over the entire
organization (departments dealing with finance, HR, legal, IT, publications,
real estate, investments, etc.)  They will then define a criteria for assessing
risk and then begin to apply this criteria to all record groups.  This is an
effort by the committee to help us as an organization focus our energies,
prioritize our efforts, and deal with records that have the most risk to the
organization first.  I've got some ideas but would like to see what some of the
RM community thinks.
 
Does anyone have a good definition of risk.  Can a definition be applied
globally or are there different types of risk?
 
Thanks for any insight.
 
 
 
 
Richard H. Davis
Manager, Records and Information Management
Church History Department
801-240-3673
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