Yuck. I am not eating an elephant. Even a 60 lb elephant, unless it is basted with a lot of barbeque sauce and served up by a good chef. Even then, I will be careful what I carve into.
Since we have few examples of individuals filing and retaining email responsibly due simply to the volume that overwhelms them, I think email management is most successful when it is served up by a chef (a well planned email management system) and the relevance of email for retention is identified early with filters and rules (the sauce). Even then, each user should be careful what they carve into and use.
Email virus checks, phishing filters, and initial business relevance filters all help manage risk and volume. Each user needs to do their part in assessing actual records value. Then maybe we can eliminate 90% of it as less valuable over time. The systems, the overall policies, specific retention rules, and user participation all need work together with a lot of RM oversight. It is everyone's responsibility to work together on this. Senior level RM Advisory Committees with IT, Legal, and business users are the way to start. RM must make a good convincing business case with management for this to begin.
John
****************************
John Phillips
Information Technology Decisions
www.infotechdecisions.com
865-966-9413
-----Original Message-----
From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Larry Medina
Sent: Tuesday, August 24, 2010 12:21 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Voice mail & texting
John Phillips <[log in to unmask]> posed the age old question:
>Re" " we don't even have a decent e-mail policy in place yet "
>
>This is common. I am curious as to why RMs have trouble getting a policy in
place, and would be interested in any discussion of this. Typical
experiences include:
>
>1) IT selecting the technology solution seems to get in the way of policy
revision
>2) The "policy group" or "legal counsel" has control of policy and can't
get around to it.
>3) There is a "process" for policy proposal/revision that slows everything
down by complicating the number of inputs necessary for anyone to approve it.
>4) Etc.
>
>Any comments? It would nice if RM could simply propose a policy revision
and thus get it off of their responsibility list.
>
Well, compare this to our discussion about Rich Wilson's situation- Whose
responsibility is it anyway?
The organization decided to test out email prior to:
giving any guidance on its use for business purposes
developing a policy regarding what it should be used for
what it shouldn't be used for
when content meets the definition of a record
how to manage it
that retention is based on content because email is not a record series
And that was what? 20 years ago? =)
In past discussions I've addressed email as being the business equivalent of
Pandora's Box. It was shiny, attractive, exciting, and everyone wanted to
have it... then they opened the lid and were in awe of what it held... but
realized soon it was too late to close it and contain what was inside. And
as time went along, they became so enthralled with it that it was part of
their life, and they saw no need to control it, they were comfortable with
it simply existing all around them.
Then one of the imps that arrived with 'the box' stung them
(Andersen/Enron), and in other cases bit them (Microsoft/DOJ,
RJReynolds/People of the US), or injured them badly (Morgan Stanley/US Govt,
Zubulake/UBSWarburg) and they realized there was a need to try to contain them.
I think the biggest problem is that organizational culture has a problem
with trying to address the 600 pound elephant in the room. In some cases you
see it and try to corral it; in other cases, you move other furniture to
make room for it, and buy drapes to compliment it. Even when considering
deploying an ECM or ERMS product, they want to try to tackle email as the
first item to manage instead of their other content, but they fail to see
the magnitude.
One consideration is not trying to plug the dike and control everything
behind the dam to begin with, but rather to stop the incoming flow. Draw a
'line in the sand' and develop a policy to initially manage email on an day
forward basis, THEN look at how to gain control of the legacy content. In
this way, you can begin eating the elephant one bite at a time instead of
trying to ingest it in one swallow.
Even if you think globally and act locally- draft an organization wide
policy, then test it on a division or department as a pilot and see how it
works, then spread it out to another, and another, and another and continue
building on the successes and adjusting for lessons learned during the
process. If you start with smaller, key organizations and can show how it
has improved their effectiveness and efficiency, it's easier to sell it to
others.
It's been proven through many studies that less than 10% of email sent and
received meets the organizational definition of a record in most cases, and
in fact the number in certain environments is below 5%. Doesn't it make
more sense that if you can eliminate 90% of the 'problem' and only have to
deal with 10% of it that it would be easier? I mean, a 60 pound elephant
would be a LOT EASIER to eat!
Larry
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