I am a frequent reader of a variety of blogs each day, covering topics such as Information Management and Technology, Records Management, Enterprise 2.0, Project Management, Leadership and many others.  A recent entry in one caught my attention and caused me to think more about the applicability of the topic to Records and Information Management.

Mike Schaffner writes a blog titled Beyond Blinking Lights and Acronyms.  Mike is currently the Director of IT of the Valves and Measurement Group of Cameron International in Houston, TX.  I also have an IT background which is probably a reason I enjoy reading his blog and can relate to so much of what he has to write.

A recent posting was about Making Exceptions to IT Rules.  Mike wrote in this posting:

“IT folks often see things as a choice of two absolutes. It suits our way of thinking. It may have started with the days of binary coding where everything was either a 1 or a 0 and only a 1 or a 0. We like the simplicity and elegance of only having a choice between 1 or 0, right or wrong, yes or no, black or white. This black or white perspective would be nice if it could truly be achieved, but the hard truth is that we live in a gray world where absolutes are rare.”

I have been on all sides of IT policies, procedures and standards throughout my career.  I have had to write them, defend and enforce them or try to find ways around other IT groups policies so my team or customers could get their jobs done.

So how do we write our policies and design our processes for managing records and information such that they are not counterproductive to our organization?  How do we make the declaration or capture of records such that it fits into the normal way that our customers and colleagues work?

In too many organizations, storing information or records is as difficult as the way Physical Records were handled – box the material, label it in only one certain way and then send it to central records for handling.  If you didn’t follow the steps exactly, the material will find its way back to you for further handling.  No exceptions.  Do it this way or your records will not be stored.

Many of the same processes for declaring records have found their way into the electronic world also – move the content from the collaborative area and place it in the records center or copy it from the content management system and save it to your desktop and then move it to the records management system or any variety of rules.

Unfortunately the lack of flexibility when it comes to declaring and storing records probably exposes our companies to risk that isn’t necessary because we keep information longer than we need, mainly because the process of declaring or tagging information as a record is too cumbersome.  If it’s not declared as a record and tracked as such, when can’t dispose of it when its retention period is up.  It also increases our storage costs for both electronic and physical items because we keep more than we should.

There are certainly cases where absolutely following a policy or process is required for some types of records.  Medical records, records with personal information and several other types have stringent rules that must be followed.  But in many cases, our processes on how that can happen are open to some flexibility in making it easier on our customers in storing records. 

We need to plug into the business process of our clients and find how we can capture what we need to manage the records without a large burden on them.  Many of the systems available have ways to do this “behind the scenes” via workflow or other mechanisms.  We have the ability to make the capture of records almost transparent to our customers.

The guidance that Mike gave in his blog on IT policies and processes is good for records and information managers.  We need to recognize that there will be some situations where exceptions are valid and figure out the best way to address and accommodate them.  When developing and enforcing policies and processes, consider which ones are critical and which ones have some "give" in them if needed.

What about your organization?  Is it just a choice of 1 or 0?  Do your users avoid your policies and processes because they interfere with them doing their jobs?