Improving your personal or organisational information state does not have to be overly complex, nor expensive.
There are many things you can do to start taking steps to protect your information and data assets.
Trying to identify and improve everything at once will likely prove to be overwhelming, lead to ‘decision paralysis’ or be considered cost prohibitive.
Here’s three steps to help get you started…
Step 1: Know thyself
Information governance is a process. Making positive, incremental changes over time does improve things. It’s OK to start small, say with a pilot programme, to get a feel or vibe for things and scale up from there.
Set yourself a straightforward goal: begin by understanding the nature of information you encounter over a period of time.
This could be in your own role, a workflow, across a team or a business unit.
- Is it digital or analog (eg: hardcopy)?
- What format do things take? Are they files, texts, e-mails, messages?
- Do these originate from inside the organisation or exernally? How do they arrive and when?
- Who actually owns these sources of information? You? Somebody in your own company? A third party?
Remember: you don’t have to get everything done at once (you won’t and can’t and that’s OK).
Beginning to make observations is a first step!
Step 2: Know that you are not alone
Whether you are are a sole trader, corporate execcutive, team lead, team member or other you can (indeed should) seek trusted advice.
To whom you turn is going to be determined by far too many variables to exhaustively publish here, but ever since mankind first began cave painting others have observed, iterated and advanced information theory and practice.
Below are some ideas which may begin steering your information governance journey in the right direction:
- Depending on the nature of data and information you are engaging with (as well as the kind of organisation you belong to) you may have a designated Data Protection Officer. Alternatively you may have other colleagues or teams with responsibilities for information, data and knowledge management.
- Your immediate colleagues and peers can prove to be fonts of all kinds of useful knowledge. Whether you are a new start or otherwise don’t be afraid to make enquiries. The answers may be closer than you think!
- Regulatory bodies often make guidance available publically. In the UK the Information Commissioner’s Office are an invaluable source you can refer to.
- Professional and other societies exist to share best practices, innovations and are a great way to meet fellow practioners. In the UK one such organisation is CILIP: The library and information association.
Step 3: Trust the process
There’s no one way to improve your information state whether your focus is on one or all of the three pillars concerning information matters:
- Confidentiality
- Integrity (‘completeness’)
- Accessibility
What you do, how you do it and how far it takes you is all part and parcel of any continual improvement process.
Arguably some improvement is better than none… the important thing is to begin.
Will there be a a few false steps along the way? Perhaps. Maybe even probably… but nothing ventured, nothing gained after all.
What would be a failure is a complete failure to launch, to not even dare to raise ones head up and say:
“Hmmm… there must be a better way of doing things”.
Chances are there is.