RIM: A Liberal Arts Model.

• Author: CHASE, CHARLES G.
• Position: Records and information management

AT THE CORE

THIS ARTICLE EXAMINES:

* the four "liberal arts" of a successful records and information management (RIM) program

* how technology developments are forcing RIM professionals to redefine their fundamental role in the organization

* how a liberal-arts approach to learning can position RIM managers to play a strategic role within their organizations

Aristotle and his Peripatetic school are credited with inventing the liberal-arts approach to education. While the liberal-arts curriculum does not prepare students for particular careers or professions, it espouses an understanding at a higher and broader level that enables one to understand the foundations of more specific fields. Instruction in the liberal arts still includes composition, public speaking, math, music, history, literature, and other areas that -- in the liberal-arts framework - all educated persons should have in common. In an age of extreme specialization, there is still a need for enlightened generalists, those knowledgeable in the four records and information management (RIM) "liberal arts": RIM, business process design, law, and information technology (IT). Today, no one can know everything about all these areas, but everyone can understand the nature and value of their roles in information management.

Whether noticed or not, the RIM paradigm continues to change rapidly. Awash in unpredictable technology developments, the RIM profession must redefine its own fundamental role in the organization. Change is constant, but what is now significant is the speed at which technology is proliferating and driving organizational change. RIM professionals are continually confronted with new strategies, such as Web enabling, data mining, knowledge management, and business intelligence. They are bombarded with acronyms like RDMS, EDMS, ODBC, HTML, and WAP from those who would remake the business environment in their image. It is important to get above this Tower of Babel and find a new direction; offered here is an approach and some conceptual tools to facilitate this metamorphosis.

Finding that new direction first requires finding out and understanding where the profession has been. This search begins with basic business process design, a function that is no longer viewed as separate from systems design. Essentially, the two have become indistinguishable. They are increasingly surrendered, however, to systems groups rather than being retained as a departmental responsibility, a program management responsibility, an enterprise responsibility, or a legal responsibility -- all this despite the fact that all these business elements are key stakeholders in the process. This is a classic case of subtle usurpation of line authority by staff specialists. It leads, among other things, to a reduction in coordination among functions. Why does this occur?

It happens largely because a tear in the organizational fabric has developed. Business elements have become more highly specialized and more technically oriented within themselves. Focus is increasingly inward. Knowledge gaps, communications gaps, and technical gaps appear among these increasingly disparate business functions. When implementing business systems, deference regarding design is increasingly given over to IT people. This is wise only to the extent that it makes good business sense. Carried to extremes, however, this deference becomes problematic. Consider this: Despite in-house IT expertise and the growth of a massive external IT consulting and the value-added reselling (VAR) industry, as few as 20 percent of major technical installations are considered to be completely successful. A startling number (often cited as high as 40 percent) are considered so unsuccessful that they are terminated. In the face of such a failure rate, with all of this IT expertise available, how can this be?

The answer may be alarmingly simple. It is not the technical input that is lacking. Rather, the problem is that all the stakeholders in the process have not been adequately identified and accommodated in the design and implementation of the project. The case studies are myriad; many are reported in the trade journals. The problem goes directly to the communication gaps previously mentioned and represents a significant tear in the fabric of the organization. Recognizing and acknowledging this problem is fundamentally significant. Doing so offers the basis for a new direction and almost unlimited opportunity for RIM professionals. It has the potential to move them from the tail end of the process to the very center of organizational planning and development. It offers opportunities to change how they are perceived and valued. Too often, RIM is viewed as a static overhead cost. However, the professional now has an opportunity to be recognized as an essential, value-added element of the management paradigm.

Being familiar with the operations of all units in the organization, RIM practitioners are in the most logical position to facilitate communications and cooperation among the stakeholders, to mend the tear in the organizational fabric as they maintain ongoing contact with all of them. They are part of, for example, the only information-management discipline that has a solution to uncontrolled records growth, litigation risk avoidance, compliance with law and regulation, and permanent or long-term preservation of archival material. This was and is their domain; they must reclaim it. How can they do it?

They do it by becoming true internal consultants who facilitate communication and improve understanding between all of the stakeholders. As information professionals, they must promote a vision that involves all stakeholders working together in a team-based approach to systems design and implementation. Further, they must convince the organization to embrace this view, to understand that technology drives fundamental management issues of strategy and vision that extend far beyond the IT purview and levels of competency. Once this critical vision is established, the organization will be in a much better position to develop successful strategies for integration of multiple needs and viewpoints.

One of the ways to accomplish this organizational transformation is to acquire the basic organizational knowledge required to build a solid RIM environment. That involves four fundamental areas, or "arts," in which every RIM professional must become conversant. They can be characterized as the...