Managing electronic records in Africa a view from the trenches. Shadrack Katuu

Transcription

1 Managing electronic records in Africa a view from the Shadrack Katuu

2 Outline Experience working at the Nelson Mandela Foundation Experience in other institutions in South Africa and within the continent Practical challenges after implementing applications Concluding remarks 2

3 1.0 Nelson Mandela Foundation The NMF is non-governmental organization that began in 1999 as a support office for Mr. Mandela upon his retirement. Over time, developed programmatic activities including rural education and HIV/AIDS In 2004 the founder announced his retirement from active work In 2005, the Centre of Memory and Dialogue was launched to continue the work of the his legacy 3

4 1.0 Nelson Mandela Foundation On the dialogue side ( the team hosts national level dialogue sessions, the most high profile being the Annual Lecture. Over the past 7 years it has hosted President Bill Clinton, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Prof Wangari Maathai, President Thabo Mbeki, Mr Koffi Annan, President Ellen Sirleaf and Prof Mohamed Yunus hosts community level dialogue sessions on such issues as social cohesion and HIV/AIDS On the memory side ( the team manages personal papers as well as post-custodial access to archival material through databases (e.g. speeches, bibliography and anti-apartheid movement archives). conducts research and has several publications (e.g. The Authorised Comic and A Prisoner in the Garden). Additionally, the team supports research work including books (e.g. The Authorized Portrait), documentaries (e.g. BBC s Mandela at 90 and dissertations. 4

5 1.0 Nelson Mandela Foundation develops outreach projects including exhibitions is responsible for the records management function within the organization. The NMF has about 30 staff members and is working on developing the Mandela Portal which, at its most fundamental level, aims to make accessible, through an Internet gateway, records generated by its founder as well as the institution. Building towards this aim, Hummingbird was implemented in Over the course of the last 6 years several enhancements and developments have taken place including hardware and middleware upgrades, software version upgrades and addition of new modules. In order to provide a comprehensive analysis, I would suggest looking at the developments at three levels using the 3 P analysis [People, Process and Product] 5

6 People Process Product 1.0 Nelson Mandela Foundation Creating awareness and demystifying myths Developing capacity Improving morale Documenting records management processes Improving IT governance mechanisms (e.g. instituting Service Level Agreements and monitoring performance) Upgrading hardware environment Upgrading middleware (database) Migrating data through different versions 6

7 1.0 Nelson Mandela Foundation Challenges Product Between 2004 and 2006, Hummingbird was bought out by OpenText. The were anxious moments in the institution and within the country about what would happen to the Hummingbird clients. Integration issues have been a major headache. When migrating platforms on both the server side and client side, it took over 3 months to get it right. Process IT governance process greatly improved the processes relating to management of the supporting infrastructure Error resolution mechanisms had to be established Had to change service provider because of poor service delivery 7

8 1.0 Nelson Mandela Foundation People There have been monitoring process checking who has saved the most and giving of prizes Done numerous and phased training sessions for several reasons. Sometimes it is to all staff when it relates to a new feature in the application or to new staff members that have to be introduced to the whole application, or existing staff that have not used a particular feature for sometime. Processes Product People 8

9 1.0 Nelson Mandela Foundation In the current set up, three modules are in place Document Management, Records Management and Workflow It is hoped that in the near future other modules will be added including Business Intelligence (for data mining purposes), Business Process Management (to replace Workflow) and Portal and Digital Asset Management (as the infrastructure to be used to develop the Mandela Portal). The most immediate project however relates to integrating the existing infrastructure with a recently deployed SAP system known as Business One. 9

10 2.0 Experience in other institutions In South Africa several institutions have implemented CIPRO (Companies and Intellectual Property Registration Office) Department of Sports and Recreation Department of Trade Municipality of Polokwane Nuclear Energy Regulator of South Africa Office of the President Parliament of South Africa South Africa Broadcasting Corporation South African Bureau of Standards These institutions have implemented a variety of products including those from OpenText, EMC, IBM, Microsoft, and HP. There are also a variety of open source products e.g. KnoweldgeTree and Alfresco 10

11 2.0 Experience in other institutions There also many experiences in other countries within the continent Botswana A national project began in 2003 that eventually chose HP Trim which is currently being rolled out to the National Archives and the Office of the President Ministry of Trade and Industry has a product from Singapore Kenya a UN agency and several private sector organizations have or are implementing different open source products such as Knowledge Tree Lesotho Central Bank of Lesotho has a product from OpenText Namibia project began in 2006 to develop a policy on e- records. A product from the Government of China was launched in the Office of the Prime Minister 11

12 2.0 Experience in other institutions Swaziland Central Bank of Swaziland has a product from OpenText Tanzania the ICTR (International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda) that is situated in Arusha has been using HP Trim for the last few years Uganda the National Social Security Fund has a product from OpenText Zambia Central Bank of Zambia is considering implementing a product from OpenText Other nations with ongoing activities include Angola, Ethiopia, Ghana, and Nigeria. 12

13 3.0 What is missing? State of the ECM Industry 2009 published by AIIM How best you characterize your organization s experience? N=487 About 25% of smaller organizations and about 15% of larger organisations not yet begun any implementation or plan to do so within the next 6 months. About 15% of smaller organizations and over 10% of larger organizations have completed enterprise-wide implementation 13

14 3.0 What is missing? There are numerous opportunities for advising organizations that have not started or plan to start implementation. This includes Functional requirements standards e.g. DOD v3, MOREQ2, Australian 2008 edition, ICA 2009 edition, South Africa s Tender 398 etc Methodology assistance JISC Infonet an advisory service mainly to the educational sector in the UK has developed the EDRM System Implementation Toolkit. The toolkit has 10 major stages in the implementation process. Stage 1 to 7 deal with preparatory and procurement processes, stage 8 with implementation, 9 with measuring the results and 10 with project closure! 14

15 3.0 What is missing? AIIM ECM training courses mostly deal with the how to e.g. How to link the ECM initiative to business strategy and KPIs, How to develop an ECM program charter and business case, How to plan the implementation of ECM according to the open methodology MIKE2, How to identify and prioritize the business and technology requirements for ECM, How to design a taxonomy, metadata, and security model, How to identify new roles, responsibilities, and the organizational structure necessary to provide governance and management, How to develop, test and train, How to deploy, operate and close-out an ECM implementation See 15

16 3.0 What is missing? Expert reports e.g. Gartner beyond the Hype Cycles, Magic Quadrant, Market Forecasts, Market Share, Market Scope, Vendor ratings, there s little else that could be of ongoing relevance Forrester beyond the Forrester Wave, there s little else that could be of ongoing relevance CMS Watch beyond the technology reports and courses on fundamentals there little else that could be of ongoing relevance see and Doculabs White Papers offer little advice beyond talking about shared services see Case studies in professional publications Adam, Azad (2007) Implementing electronic document and record management systems Boca Raton : Auerbach 16

17 3.0 What is missing? Bantin, Philip C (2008) Understanding data and information systems for recordkeeping London : Facet McLeod, Julie (2006) How to manage records in the e-environment London : Routledge McLeod, J and Hare, C (eds) (2005) Managing electronic records Publisher London : Facet Rankin, Frank (2006) Implementing EDRMS and shaping the record in A Tough and M Moss (eds) Record keeping in a hybrid environment Chandos ; Oxford Saffady, William (2009) Managing electronic records Lenexa, Kansas: ARMA International Shepherd, Elizabeth (2003) Managing records : a handbook of principles and practice London : Facet, 2003 Smith, Kelvin (2007) Planning and implementing electronic records management : a practical guide London : Facet Publishers What happens to institutions that have gone past the initial stages? 17

18 3.0 What is missing? In South Africa, anecdotal evidence shows that there are numerous organizations that are beyond the initial stages National Government Department A and B just began phased implementation National Government Department C completed enterprise-wide implementation 5 years ago National Government Department D - completed enterprise-wide implementation 6 years ago National Government Agency A- completed enterprise-wide implementation 3 years ago National Government Agency B planning to implement within the next 12 months Local Government Department A - completed enterprise-wide implementation 3 years ago National Government Regulator A - completed enterprise-wide implementation 3 years ago 18

19 3.0 What is missing? Two possible avenues need to be explored that may assist. 3.1 RMCAS (Records Management Capacity Assessment System) 3.2 Maturity models 3.1 RMCAS It is a freely available tool developed by the International Records Management Trust (IRMT) through funding from the World Bank see es.gov.uk/rmcas/ 19

20 3.1 RMCAS It assesses in a three dimensional manner by examining Rec. Mgt. infrastructure (ICT integration, business function integration, ownership, legal and regulatory framework) Rec. Mgt. over time through information lifecycle model (records creation, maintenance, storage and disposition) Capacity levels from capacity level 0 (where systems are non existent) to capacity level 5 (where all components are optimally integrated) It has a three part framework. 20

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28 3.1 RMCAS Strengths RMCAS introduces a more elaborate assessment of recordkeeping assessment dimension by analyzing the lifecycle as well as the organizational environment. Weaknesses RMCAS has several weakness It doesn't comprehensively cover organizational environment. It has customized modules for assessing legal, human resource and financial records but none for other types of records e.g. health records. 28

29 3.1 RMCAS Weaknesses While it assesses the whole of the records management programme and its integration with IT, it doesn t assess anything relating to the implementation of ECM. This is because RMCAS was conceptualized at a time when ECM was at its infancy. Two of the three standards it is based on are well known (ISO and MOREQ). However, these are either being reviewed (the former) or have been revised (the latter) which means that its data collection instrument is dated Lastly, the strength of the assessment tool lies in the first two levels of assessment having been (inadvertently) at a developing world s realities. This means there s need to develop rigorous assessment criteria from level 3 upwards. 29

30 3.2 Maturity models Maturity models have their roots in the field of quality management. One of the earliest models Quality Management Maturity Grid (QMMG) described the typical behavior exhibited by a firm at five levels of maturity uncertainty, awakening, enlightening, wisdom and certainty in their ascent to quality management excellence P. B. Crosby (1979) Quality is free The maturity model philosophy (aka Capability Maturity Model) aims at continuous improvement through different capacity levels and saw its first implementation in the software development arena in the mid 1980s at Carnegie Mellon University s Software Engineering Institute in the US. 30

31 3.2 Maturity models While few experts are confident about the exact number of maturity models out there, this presentation has a tentative list of 35 in such diverse general areas as general management, health, information and internet management, operations and project related, as well as systems and software engineering and management. There are other models which do not necessarily fit within criteria e.g. Broccoli maturity model and immaturity models 31

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37 3.2 Maturity models Regardless of what disciplinary area in which they fall, all maturity models operate on the premise that continuous improvement has to be through different levels. The number of levels range from 4 e.g. Decision making capability maturity, Capability immaturity model 5 - e.g. Gartner IT asset management maturity model, People capability maturity model 6 e.g. General Practice Information maturity model, Gartner Knowledge management maturity model, [Records Management Assessment Capacity tool] 7 e.g. Gartner s infrastructure maturity model 37

38 3.2 Maturity models A typical 5 level maturity model, each level could be characterized as Level 1 Some awareness; sporadic improvement activities may be underway in a few areas Level 2 General awareness; informal approach deployed in a few areas with varying degrees of effectiveness and sustainability Level 3 A systematic approach/methodology deployed in varying stages across most areas; facilitated with good metrics; good sustainability Level 4 Ongoing refinement and continuous improvement across the enterprise; improvement gains are sustained Level 5 Exceptional, well-defined innovative approach is fully deployed across the extended enterprise (across internal and external value streams); recognized as best practice 38

39 Maturity models These levels evoke a lifecycle model of development. For information management professionals this focus on lifecycle makes the maturity model phenomenon familiar and easy to follow 39

40 3.2 Maturity models makes it critical to focus attention on process rather than all the usual suspects and particularly on technology. While technology represents a highly tangible and visible solution to management problems, many commentators have cautioned against excessive focus since it is merely an enabler that supports management efforts. A. Chua and W. Lam (2005) Why KM projects fail: a multi-case analysis Many of the more successful practices in the UK have very mature information management procedures built around relatively old technology A. Gilles (2000) Information support for general practice in the new NHS Quality management is more reliant on changes in work procedures rather than new technology 40

41 The challenge What can practitioners and scholars in this region do to assist the profession? You have already Contributed immensely in standards development with ISO being developed from a national standard, and many of you (e.g. Judith Ellis and Barbara Reed) being invaluable members of the international standards development team Contributed immensely in research and development e.g. in Monash University (Clever Recordkeeping Metadata Project) as well as collaborating in international research e.g. InterPARES Contributed some of the world s best applications HP TRIM and GMB aka Knowledgeone Corporation 41

42 The challenge More and more organizations are getting to the post-implementation stage and asking the question, what do we do next? Can maturity models help? The philosophy has been in existence for several decades and been adopted in many other disciplinary endeavours. Shouldn t we develop a maturity model for ECM implementation that also incorporates the 3 P s 42

43 The challenge Stage 1 Embryonic (2003 for a couple of months) Stage 2 Toddler ( ) Product Stage 3 Adolescence ( ) Stage 4 Young adult ( ) Processes Stage 5 Maturity (2010 to the future) People 43

44 The challenge Can RMCAS help? There are weaknesses because it is using outdated standards There are weaknesses at higher levels of sophistation (level 3 upwards) 44

45 Concluding remarks My call is to academics and professionals in this part of the world to look at these two opportunities (RMCAS and maturity models) and see how best to address the gap in the ECM implementation journey. I thank you skatuu@gmail.com 45