On Information and ECM Architecture

So here I am at the 2008 AIIM Conference and it has been a busy day networking, viewing presentations and getting a feel for who is who in the Vendor trade floor. From discussions that I have had today I am ever more convinced as far as ECM Architecture goes there is a gaping hole in this part of the fabric of ECM.

Sure there are probably companies that are doing it, but over all there is not much best practice to go on, or should I say consistent and industry recognised best practice.

The best examples that I have seen of Information Architecture at work and relating to the overall Enterprise Architecture is work that has been done by Roger Evernden. Roger built an Information Framework in the 80's which is licensed to IBM. Dealing with the financial sector it non the less provides some interesting insight to Information and Architecture.

Roger has also written a book called Information First, which I have in my library and continue to refer to from time to time. My question is however, why has Architecture for Information and ECM in general not become mainstream. Well there may be some answers in the conversation that I had with Alan Pelz-Sharpe where we were talking about business analysts and the fact that a lot of these people do not have the necessary depth of skills that are required to be a good analyst. Given that information and ECM are relatively new I believe that there is just not the body of knowledge and or the people around with the experience and skills en masse to pull this all off. Therefore we will have to suffer part time players with a thin veneer for time to come.

Content, Content everywhere and not a spot to link

The issue of content silos is not going to go away anytime soon. All to often organisations start their implementation of an ECM Strategy direct to technology based on a subset of the overall ECM components, such as Web Content Management (WCM). What generally happens is that there is an articulated need for "getting the website under control" and off the web team go with a mandate to select a tool and get it in place.

• What about the context in which this tool is being place?
• How does it fit with the overall creation of content that will eventually feed into the tool?
• Who are the stakeholders, and how will they interact with the system?
• Can we re purpose content for the intranet as well as the Internet?
• Is there an Information Architecture that the tool will fit into?
• Will there be a seamless flow of information into and out of the tool?

Without a sensible map of where individual ECM components fit into the overall organisational strategy and the needs of the organisation we will continue to see point solutions managing content but providing no linking to other important and relevant information elsewhere in the organisation. Result, managed mess !

Leadership and Change Management what gives?

Change Management. It is a term that we are always talking to potential customers about and stressing the importance of, as a fundamental process to the success of any ECM based project.

But time and time again I hear from these same people, who have decided to implement themselves or with others, about the issues they are having getting people in the organisation to use the system (technology) chosen and how difficult this is.

Well it is no surprise. Change management is often spoken about in great terms, but rarely carefully considered, especially with regards the time, money and resources required to really make an impact to the organisation to change from the current mind set and work practise to the new "ways of working" that the solution provides for.

There seems to be a general understanding in organisations that change management is important, but sometimes there is no resulting commitment for what it takes to make the change happen. The best recount that I have seen of change management was the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) in the UK.

They implemented a records and document management system and key to the implementation was a solid change management process, now the emphasis is on process. At the Conference I attended the presenter that was from DTI discussed in depth how they constructed their Change journey.

This journey was planned and executed with the focus on letting the people know what was going to happen, why it was happening and what they needed to do about. The best part was where after doing all this there was then a plan to ensure that each group was ready and led through the change into the new system.