Strategic information management: continuing need, continuing opportunities.

• Author: Dearstyne, Bruce

At the Core

This article

* defines the concept of SIM

* discusses live opportunities to apply SIM methods

* examines trait of an information-proficient organization

Strategic information management (SIM) fits into a category of new, emerging, and embryonic ideas, including records and information management (RIM) and knowledge management (KM), that have themselves emerged recently as information professionals and the institutions where they work come to grips with the vast, unsettling implications of digital information technology. The technology makes it easy to create, transmit, store, access, and use information that is becoming the basis for business operations, customer service, and government's relationship with citizens. The technology is powerful, increasingly available at low or modest cost, widely deployed and, therefore, as Nicholas Cart argues in the Harvard Business Review article "IT Doesn't Matter," so ubiquitous that by itself it no longer provides a distinguishing competitive advantage in business.

Many SIM proponents reach a similar conclusion from a different perspective; they recognize that what really counts is people's creative use of information rather than the technology to create, transmit, and present that information. One hallmark of sound strategic management is its flexibility, responsiveness to change, and ability to respond to new challenges. A strategic approach involves planning, choosing, and trading off, including sometimes improvising or shifting approaches on the fly. It has a military flavor--"strategy" comes from the Greek strategos ("general")--of out-thinking and outmaneuvering an adversary, knowing that the adversary is also trying to out-do you as well. According to Avinash K. Dixit and Barry J. Naelbuff's book Thinking Strategically: The Competitive Edge in Business, Politics, and Everyday Life:

... think of the difference between decisions of a lumberjack and those of a general. When the lumberjack decides how to chop wood, he does not expect the wood to fight back; his environment is neutral. But when the general tries to cut down the enemy's army, he must anticipate and overcome resistance to his plans. Like the general, you must recognize that your business rivals, prospective spouse, and even your child are intelligent and purposeful people. Their aims often conflict with yours, but they include some potential allies. Your own choice must allow for the conflict and utilize the cooperation. Such interactive decisions are called strategic, and the plan of action appropriate to them is called a strategy. SIM is still being invented; it will inevitably change, merge with other trends, and maybe take on a different name in the future. But the concept is worthy of continuing attention and development. Although it is still emerging and being defined, the term "SIM" is used broadly here to connote the imaginative, systematic management and use of information to achieve objectives that are clearly aligned with and contribute to the organization's objectives.

Continuing Opportunities and Needs

Five examples illustrate opportunities and needs for further development and application of SIM concepts and methods:

1. Better information management might have thwarted terrorists. A recent congressional report--"Report of the Joint Inquiry into the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001" by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence--focuses on strategic intelligence information but illustrates strategic information management issues that are found, with variations, in most large organizations:

   * Multiple pieces of reformation may obscure the "collective significance" needed for deep understanding and action. The report found that "relevant information" regarding the 9/11 attacks was available to the intelligence community prior to the attacks but that "the community too often failed to focus on that information and consider and appreciate its collective significance in terms of a probable terrorist attack ... the intelligence community failed to capitalize fully on available, and potentially important, information." This is a common issue in large organizations where people must constantly receive and process information and strive to see patterns, connections, and trends, often within tight time[tames and highly competitive settings.

   * Superabundance of information overwhelms ability to sift through, organize, and act on it. Information, of course, has varying degrees of timeliness, pertinence, and importance. Having too much information is sometimes as great a challenge as having too little. SIM tries to address that challenge. The congressional report notes that "some significant pieces of information in the vast stream of data being collected were overlooked, some were not recognized as potentially significant at the time and, therefore, not disseminated, and some required additional action on the part of foreign governments before a direct connection to the hijackers could have been established."

   * Individual face-to-face meetings provide opportunities to share or withhold - information. The report includes several examples of informal or formal meetings where individuals from intelligence and security agencies met and had the opportunity to informally share information on the spot, face-to-face--one of the oldest, and still one of the most effective, means of sharing relevant and current information. But too often, the report reveals, this opportunity was not taken.

   * Fresh information may trump more reflective, seasoned information and vice versa. The congressional report offers a number of examples of reflective reports...