Getting buy-in for your information governance program.

• Author: Lederman, Paula F.
• Position: GARP: ARMA INTERNATIONAL - Generally Accepted Recordkeeping Principles - Report

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Communicating the need for an effective information governance program to legal, IT, and the C-level suite is frequently a struggle. Using the Generally Accepted Recordkeeping Principles[R] and its complementary Information Governance Maturity Model as a guide will allow you to graphically illustrate the health of your information governance program and areas where the organization needs to focus to achieve its desired level of maturity.

As organizations adapt to changes in markets, finances, or international regulations, it's easy for them to reshuffle the organization chart, furniture, phones, and e-mail addresses. However, it's not so easy to manage one of their most critical assets--the information that staff members need to operate--which is even more crucial to organizations' long-term success.

Why Information Governance Is Important

When information was paperbased, organizations were likely to have detailed policies and procedures that ensured it was managed from its creation through the time it needed to be discarded or sent to archival storage.

As organizations have shifted to electronic records, though, many have not managed their information with that same discipline because storage is cheap, stored information is invisible, and it is easy to keep everything forever--just in case it is needed.

However, today's exploding volumes of poorly managed electronic information present a number of risks and associated high costs, capturing the attention of C-level executives, particularly in legal, compliance, and risk management, and disputing the notion that keeping everything 'lust in case" is a good strategy.

For example, in today's litigious business environment, large volumes of electronic information mean high costs for e-discovery. Conversely, there is legal risk associated with employees' ad hoc discarding of information in the absence of policy, tools, and training to help them manage it correctly.

In addition, there are costs and risks associated with the need to reinvent work effort because documents from previous efforts cannot be found, impacting productivity and organizational credibility.

To meet this difficult challenge, everyone--from creators and users of information to lawyers, auditors, and IT staff--must understand the key concepts of information governance, which is a strategic framework that includes standards, processes, roles, and metrics that motivate and hold people accountable to create, organize, secure, maintain, use, and dispose of information in ways that effectively support the organization's goals.

Figure 1: Generally Accepted Recordkeeping Principles[R] Generally Accepted Recordkeeping Principles[R] Principle of Accountability An organization shall assign a...