People, Process and Technology #2

So let's talk about PROCESS. As we can see from the Model that I have talked about previously, process is the heart of the the organisation and the centre of the MANAGE, PROCESS & DELIVER information flow. So we see that when ever we look to implement an ECM project or technology we are going to get involved with process, in some shape and form

Now this does not mean that we are going to put in workflow or a BPM technology. In fact if you have thought about the ECM model you will realise that managing the information is the first step to get in place, and by managing the information (content in context) you are assisting the current business processes with meaningful information that is of a better quality, which in turn will help people to do their jobs easier and more effectively.


Once you have started to manage the content effectively, you can then turn your attention to the business process itself and start asking questions such as:

• Why is our business process this way?
  Does our business process need to be this way?
• What outcome or output are we trying to achieve satisy from this process?
• What content is critical to the business process and at what stage is it required?
• What is the current format that we have, can it be simplified?
• Is there critical data that needs to be pulled from the content?
• Can we make peoples jobs easier if we simplify the format or the process?
• Can we give the customer or end recipient a more cost effective and better outcome service?

Once you have answered these question you will be in a more informed position to think and plan for any workflow improvements from a people, process and technology view. Often a simple change to the way that people interact with the information and the quaility of the information supplied can make a great difference.

Information Assets and Knowledge Management

Knowledge Management? Is it real can we achieve delivery of this great mythical statement. Well I believe that it can be achieved through effective and coherent information management. Here goes the theory; Knowledge is tacit, it is shared and generally created either through personal or shared insight and is based on the use of, and / or, the creation of information. Information is data that has meaning and context.

Knowledge has a half life. Now the time of the half life I cannot express in numbers only in words. The length of Knowledge's half life is reduced as the number of people grow where the base information used has no control or validity.

For example if I send a document (information) to one other person via e-mail. We may create insight based on our communication and collaboration. But I then send that same document (uncontrolled) to another person the value of knowledge decreases, as the information is now loosing context based on its loose distribution.

The distribution of information in an uncontrolled fashion is like the game of Chinese whispers where the original meaning gets warped through the filters of the mind as it is passed from one person to another, without reference to the original source. Of course on the electronic world there is the added problem that the the original information is now in multiple copies spread across e-mail in boxes, and doused across multiple file servers.

What we really need to do is to capture the knowledge as "information" so we can provide consistency to the conversations and raise the value of the information assets. Knowledge is useful as long as people retain it and use it. But collectively it is more useful if I am able to distill the knowledge into useful information that increases the value of my information bases.

In the translation from knowledge to a more explicit state of information there is always a loss, as you cannot capture the pure insight from the mind. But even if we assume that we loose half of the knowledge acquired, we should be able to raise the overall information asset base by a factor "x" above what is was before.

So good information management is a key to the creation of knowledge and is essential to the ability to capture new insight at a value that increases the overall information asset base.

To get to the place where we can raise the level of Knowledge throughout organisation, we must first get a view that information is a key asset that needs to be managed.

You need to manage the information that is feeding into and being created by the Knowledge processes across the organisation. This is where PEOPLE interact with content in the MANAGE, PROCESS and DELIVER part of the ECM model. By getting controls in place we are able to capture and transform knowledge to information and retain its value so we can add to the overall information asset base of the organisation.

People, Manage & Technology plain old EDRMS?

Taking the combination of People, Manage and Technology, and assuming content that is primarily office documents (Word, excel, PowerPoint and e-mail) then this part of the model can be related to plain old electronic document and records management.

Not rocket science, but at the same time a fundamental piece of the overall ECM puzzle. It is probably one of the areas that is the easiest for organisations to churn out and RFP for but the hardest to get right because of the effect that the technology has on the people that need to deal with it.

Rule #1, never underestimate organisational change! Rule #2, refer to Rule 1.

What always disappoints me in the RFP process is that no matter how much you warn that Change Management is paramount there seems to be a general lack of real appreciation for how much is necessary for the organisation. It's like telling my daughters to eat their vegetables. They know it is the right thing to do but just do not want to do it. So to do organisations approach organisational change. Dealing with people is messy and time consuming, and some think it is far better to ram in the technology and deal with the issues later.

I have recently seen one organisation that is out for tender where the existing DMS system has a couple of hundred thousand documents in the DMS system but 2TB of other stuff in the file server. Maybe they are all JPG's and MP3 files? I think not.

This picture is really wrong but is reality. By nature if the "system" is too hard to use people will work around it and default back to the old behaviours. EDRMS is fine and good and useful, but know why you are doing it and make sure that change management happens well before the technology hits the desktop.

ECM Model

So in the previous post we talked about ECM and created some definitions. In this post I would like to address a pictorial view of ECM within a model that I use to describe ECM and the various relationship components.

As you will see in the diagram the outer box is the domain of Business Strategy and Operating Plans. Here is where the organisation has a reason for being and will have outcomes that it is trying to achieve.

Within the box from the top is the People, Process and Technology component. Note the direction of the arrows in the diagram they are important. This show us that People interact with Process and that the role of technology is to support the process that the people are interacting with. This vertical view is broadly the organisation in three boxes.

Next we look at content and the "flow" of this through the organisation. Note that are are three phases of the content, Manage, Process and Deliver. Note the arrows again. You cannot deliver the content unless it has first been managed and processed. You cannot process the content unless it has been managed. Again we see that technology support the flow of the content and that people at the top are the ones that interact and make it all work.

We can draw some basic assumptions from this model.

• People at the top are the most important.
• For any ECM deliver technology is only one-third of the overall solution.
• Any ECM solution delivery should be top down driven, starting with people first
• For any enterprise approach process is in the heart of the solution

What is Content?

In most of the presentation and discussions that I have, I continued to be surprised (or not) by the general lack of understanding of what content is all about.

I guess this stems from the mental models that have been burnt into us over the years. What does content mean to you?

If you are a web guy or gal is it the stuff in the web page, or the web page itself? Or is it the word document that you are working on? Is it the whole document including the format or only the stuff that matters in the midst of the colours and format?

What about the data that you see on the screen in the transactional system such as the order entry application or the ERP system? Well all of them count and in all cases there is content.

The issue that we have is that content is so bound with the application or the format that it is hard to leverage, and further more to this as people often have different operational boundaries the content is though of in context to the application and format not to the business process or to the flow of how the content should move through the organisation. But content in its own right is not the be all and end all, as if the content cannot be placed in context then it has no meaning.

We can draw lessons from the web world and see that much has been done to separate content from format, but how do we manage, process and deliver this context contextually across the business processes and in and out of the formats that are required while also maintaining control of it.

People, Process and Technology

I spent the last couple of days locked in a bubble talking to people about stuff that we sell. In this bubble I presented to a group around website redevelopment and why people seem to do it.

As usual I place the WCM part within the wider context of ECM and started by looking into the organisation and how it fits together from a very high level. Organisations exist for a reason and generally we can call this reason the business driver(s). From this reason we then get People. People come together to bring to life the reason or the driver. The interaction of the people we can call process.

So people drive process to deliver to the reason. Technology has evolved over time to support or enable the processes to help people do their jobs. Or at least that is the way that it should work. But does it really?

If we consider people, process and technology we can see that technology is only one third of the overall picture. Yet how much gets spent on this third, and how many projects start with this as the focus?

So what is ECM?

Enterprise Content Management (ECM) is a combination of methods, tools and technologies that enable an organisation to manage, process and deliver content across the enterprise.

Within the definition above there is flow and meaning. The flow of methods, tools and technologies indicates that the organisation must approach ECM in a structured way and that methodology comes first.

Methods or methodology gives the organisation a structured process that can be followed to help the organisation understand what processes are important and what content is necessary to be managed relative to the key business processes. It also delivers the high level framework under which all the other activities are delivered.

Tools such as information audits, information strategy, classification structures, metadata structures and controlled vocabularies are used throughout you methodology to bring to life the key areas of content management and will provide a bridge so that when you come to select and deploy ECM technologies you are able to do so within a defined context.

What's all the Buzz?

So this blog is all about my thoughts and expression around do with Enterprise Content Management (ECM). The main purpose is a selfish one.

Firstly, this is a domain neutral place where I can store information and my thoughts to come back to in the future. Sort of like having the electronic pieces of paper on the desk placed in a zone where they are always handy.

Secondly, you might get a piece of information that you find useful and help you along the way.

ECM is a vast discussion area that it has so many cross overs in technologies and disciplines that it is almost never ending. Hope you enjoy.