Measuring the Performance of the Electronic Records Management Program

Too often organizations fail to establish tangible performance metrics to support electronic records management implementation initiatives.   A recent AIIM research found that such absence of metrics result in a lack of top down executive commitment to approve funding for electronic records management projects.[1]  The same research found that rapidly escalating regulatory compliance and e-discovery costs notwithstanding only 9% of organizations surveyed have an enterprise-wide electronic records management strategy and systems in place.[2]  There may be a number of reasons for such a poor enterprise records management adoption trend. For one many organizations tend to have a disproportionate number of disparate document management repositories resulting in a fragmented departmental approach to records management. This may be further compounded by insufficient investments in an enterprise wide information management strategy that strives for a consistent and normalized meta-data model for all corporate information assets. There may be lack of clarity as to what dimensions of electronic records management implementations ought to be measured.  One may focus on efficiency metrics associated with how the electronic records management system performs in terms of declaration, classification rates, retrieval times and disposition. Or one may focus on the outcomes associated with electronic records implementation measured in terms of tangible ROI such as lower physical storage space costs, reduced e-discovery costs or intangible measures such as improved constituency services. However organizational alignment and executive support are imperative determinants to the success of an effective electronic records management program. As one noted authority observed “Many EDRMS projects are “led from the middle”, making them highly susceptible to failure. Without senior management endorsement, the prioritisation of the project and provision of resources required over the typical 12 to 30 month timespan – both of which are prerequisites to success – have a high probability of being withdrawn. Senior managers generally support the idea of good recordkeeping and compliance, but do not know what is involved and do not understand the productivity that is unleashed by a successful project. At the other end of the spectrum, users tend to see an EDRMS project as just another compliance driven, administrative burden with little personal benefit. Getting engagement up and down the hierarchy is therefore fundamental to the success of an EDRMS implementation.”

 

Recently Bruce Miller of www.rimtech.ca has provided very useful guidance relating to successful electronic records management implementation best practices.  The link to the article is here and it will also appear in Canadian Government Executive. 

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[1] Records Management Strategies, AIIM 2011: “A lack of commitment at the highest levels is the most likely reason that organizations have no records management system, either by default, or by not seeing sufficient need to invest the money.”

[2] Records Management Strategies, AIIM 2011: “A lack of commitment at the highest levels is the most likely reason that organizations have no records management system, either by default, or by not seeing sufficient need to invest the money.”