The art of managing RIM programs: the successful RIM program manager must have a well-developed set of inter-personal and professional talents, including the ability to perform 10 critical tasks for successful program management identified here.

• Author: Dearstyne, Bruce W.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Records and information management (RIM) professionals' work focuses predominantly on managing records and information, but to accomplish that requires well-managed RIM programs. Ultimately, management's responsibility is to build programs that work and that provide value for the customers and beneficiaries of RIM services.

Critical tasks for Successful RIM Program Managers

Managing a RIM program requires attention to several management tasks, including the 10 described below.

1. Define Program Mission and Scope

   The first management challenge is to answer the question: "What business are we in?" The RIM field is broad but a bit ragged along the edges; it intersects or overlaps with IT, chief information officers, archives, library science, knowledge management, and legal discovery. ARMA International's Records and Information Management Core Competencies defines RIM as the field of management responsible for the efficient and systematic control of the creation, receipt, maintenance, use, and disposition of records, including processes for capturing and maintaining evidence of and information about business activities and form of records.

   This new definition is expansive, places RIM in the field of management, and confirms the importance of records and information for organizational operations. Management challenges here include:

   * Explaining the "business" of the RIM program in a way that makes sense for a particular organizational setting

   * Asserting RIM's status as a part of management and making it stick by delivering return on investment

   * Using strategic planning to define program scope

   * Defining the program's scope in a way that is not so narrow as to dose in the program or confine it to one aspect of records management, but not so broad that expectations for what it can do far outrun its resources

   * Defining program scope strategically so the program can assert its independence and visibility, but at the same time cooperate with other programs that have a stake in records and information management

2. Manage For Consistency and Change

   RIM programs seem to be always "in transition" from a simpler past to a more complicated future. The book Built to Change suggests that dynamic programs need to cling to core values but that sustained effectiveness requires more or less constant change: thaw, flow into another form, refreeze, and then prepare to repeat the process.

   Be fluid and dynamic, its authors advise, and encourage experimentation, expand into new areas when strategically advantageous, craft temporary strategies, hire innovative people, and foster a change-adept culture. Key management challenges include:

   * Develop means to monitor the most important changes in technology, organizational structure, workforce demographics, and other trends that have an impact on the RIM program.

   * Identify the program's fundamental mission and "core values" as bases for keeping the program consistent and reliable in delivering services but, at the same time, dynamic and evolving.

   * Use the strategic planning process to drop outdated practices, sharpen existing ones, and add new dimensions to the program.

   * Conduct staff development initiatives to introduce new ways of doing things.

3. Manage in the Information Management Context

   RIM programs need to fit in organizations that are increasingly interested in making strategic use of their information resources to interact with customers and constituents; control key processes such as research and marketing; secure competitive advantages; and fuel and speed the value-creating work of "knowledge workers."

   Information is a much-prized--though not always fully understood or utilized--resource for businesses, governments, educational institutions, and other organizations. Records managers need to work more closely than ever before with IT departments and chief information officers to ensure that records management considerations are considered and addressed as new plans and new information systems are developed. Some management tasks in this area:

   * Consider initiatives to help the organization control, or make more systematic, the creation of records and information.

   * Help the organization find ways to measure the value of information against the costs of organizing and controlling it.

   * Clarify RIM's often-cited mission of working to get the right information to the right people at the right time in terms of what it means for information overproduction side-by-side with the need for information for productivity and decision making.

   * Determine the best strategic relationship with the organization's CIO: cooperation, merger, or some other approach?

4. Operate in the legal Context

   Another issue is the growing centrality of legal considerations in records and information management. Several major trends are driving this development, including:

   * Government "freedom of information" laws, which require certain records to be publicly accessible

   * A growing body of government laws, rules, and regulations that require retention of tax, employment, payroll

   * Other selected records' laws such as Sarbanes-Oxley, which tightened corporate accountability and documentation requirements for public companies

   * E-discovery, the process by which opponents in legal actions are required to turn over relevant documentation at the outset of litigation

   The range of legal issues and...