Organizations face several content management challenges:
- Understanding and adhering to the right laws for your jurisdiction and industry.
- Optimizing contract processing workflows.
- Changing the culture from email and paper processing.
- Ensuring you have a records and information management and workflow foundation in place.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- ECM is critical to organizational survival. ECM underpins effective information management, which is vital to surviving and thriving in the Digital Revolution.
- Engage many hands to make light work. Changing your ECM capabilities is about changing organizational behavior; take an all-hands-on-deck approach to make the most of information gathering, create a vested interest, and secure buy-in.
- ECM is a living, breathing thing. World-class ECM capabilities are not built overnight; be realistic about what you can achieve in this iteration based on your maturity.
- ECM is a business strategy, not an IT service. Modern content management is designed to be business driven and managed. Engage business users early and often in the ECM strategy and apply design thinking to the solution.
Impact and Result
- Establish a starting point and determine what is in scope for your ECM strategy to get the most value from your project.
- Conduct an operational assessment to find out what your people need.
- Create a roadmap that will bring your future-state ECM capability visions to life.
- Kick-start project execution with a comprehensive ECM roadmap execution toolkit.
- Empower your content managers and users with an understanding of best practices for being active information stewards.
Member Testimonials
After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this blueprint and what our clients have to say.
8.3/10
Overall Impact
$79,580
Average $ Saved
25
Average Days Saved
Client
Experience
Impact
$ Saved
Days Saved
Connecticut Water Company
Workshop
6/10
$13,700
10
Best: tools provided were very detailed, breaks allotted, knowledgeable expert. Worst: time taken away from work duties, alignment with our expect... Read More
Waimakariri District Council
Guided Implementation
9/10
N/A
2
County of Inyo
Guided Implementation
8/10
$68,500
5
McLean County, IL
Guided Implementation
7/10
$13,700
50
The National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago Limited
Guided Implementation
8/10
$19,865
10
More time was needed to complete some of the discussion. Need more coordination with the NGC team to focus the discussion for each session so that ... Read More
TransAlta Corporation
Guided Implementation
9/10
$10,000
20
Worst: At the beginning the conversation was too high level Best: After we got aligned with the topic; the analyst provided excellent content.
Heritage Co-op 1997 Ltd.
Guided Implementation
10/10
$50,000
50
Jennison Associates
Guided Implementation
7/10
N/A
N/A
I was disappointed that they don't have anything on Microsoft Purview, since MSFT is a big player in this space.
The National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago Limited
Workshop
9/10
$548K
90
The best part of the experience was the expert facilitation provided by the very experienced and knowledgeable Info-Tech Research Group consultant ... Read More
University of Maribor
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
N/A
Clear communication, a prompt follow-up as promised.
Central Bank of Barbados
Workshop
9/10
$51,375
29
The best part was understanding the components of an ECM operational model. This was a bit daunting since we have quite a bit more implementation w... Read More
Town of Normal
Guided Implementation
6/10
$2,393
2
Andrea was very knowledgeable in the subject. However, her delivery style could not keep people interested for long. She sounded very academic. S... Read More
CAF - Corporacion Andina de Fomento
Guided Implementation
10/10
$18,269
9
Fidelity Investments Canada ULC
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
10
The conversation with Andrea was one of the best analyst calls we had with InfoTech, insightful, informative, and with exact actionable items for u... Read More
LION
Workshop
8/10
$31,499
50
Best part of the experience--better understanding of ECM activities and interdependencies; assistance in defining in/out of scope for immediate pro... Read More
CAF - Corporacion Andina de Fomento
Guided Implementation
10/10
$12,399
20
The call exceeded my expectations, we cover best practices, frameworks and above all real world examples!
Knights of Columbus
Workshop
9/10
N/A
14
informative, and a very collaborative team-day 1 should have included some type of ice breaker , since not all participants knew each other , very ... Read More
Trinidad / Benham Corporation
Guided Implementation
9/10
$58,899
10
ActivEdge Technologies Limited
Guided Implementation
8/10
$12,399
20
The presentation was detailed, interactive and contextually delivered to address the project requirements; with rich set of supportive tools and te... Read More
Mohawk Council of Kahnawake
Guided Implementation
9/10
$25,000
20
Good first contact and discussion. Team was engaged and mostly likely will continue to participate in future meetings.
Westoba Credit Union Limited
Workshop
8/10
$50,000
47
Best: Having structured templates and processes to follow. Worst: 4 days of a Teams session!
Dark Fibre Africa
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
N/A
Cross Country Mortgage, Inc.
Guided Implementation
10/10
$61,979
20
Very helpful. Many thanks.
Long Beach Transit
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
N/A
Igor's insights were valuable to me personally, as my knowledge of SharePoint is very little. Igor has shed lights on different approaches we'll be... Read More
ArcBest Technologies
Workshop
8/10
N/A
N/A
College of the Ozarks
Guided Implementation
10/10
$6,000
14
Very informative and clear explanations.
Orange County Sanitation Districts
Guided Implementation
8/10
$12,776
10
In the above metrics I'm not sure of the time or financial impact but I know that the information provided was valuable. Igor is very knowledgeabl... Read More
Cross Country Mortgage, Inc.
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
N/A
Arizona Western College
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
N/A
The reason I chose NA for the amount of time saved is that we will actually end up putting more time and effort into the project, but it will be ti... Read More
City of Leduc
Guided Implementation
9/10
$27,500
20
I was very impressed with the research that Andrea did on our behalf and the clarity that she brought to the scoping questions we had for this proj... Read More
Workshop: Develop an Enterprise Content Management Strategy and Roadmap
Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Module 1: Establish Business Context and Value
The Purpose
Understand the business opportunities and use cases.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Pinpoint the business opportunities for and scope of the ECM solution.
- Understand scenarios and stakeholders in key ECM use cases to inform decisions about the solution.
Activities
Outputs
Conduct use case analysis.
- ECM use cases
Conduct business capability mapping.
- Key business areas in scope
Identify the ECM vision and mission.
- ECM vision and mission statements
Module 2: Understand Current ECM Capabilities and Plot Target-State Levels
The Purpose
- Understand ECM operations.
- Understand current ECM capabilities and maturity: governance, information architecture, processes/workflows, systems architecture.
- Identify target-state ECM capabilities.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Define the flow of documents and information landscape. to identify opportunities
- Provide clear guidelines to users about appropriate use of technology.
- Create a map to plan and check integrations.
Activities
Outputs
Review and analyze the information management landscape.
- System landscape
Define where the files will originate and what the flow is (lifecycle).
- Guidelines about the location and flow of information.
Define the scope of the ECM strategy and project.
- ECM project charter with scope and RACI
Module 3: Plan ECM Work Initiatives
The Purpose
- Define work initiatives to achieve target state.
- Set metrics to measure success.
- Define governance and operating models.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Focus on and invest in most important capabilities for the most impact and ROI.
- Clear direction and metrics for success.
Activities
Outputs
Evaluate and prioritize performance gaps and opportunities.
- Target-state ECM initiatives
Develop and consolidate ECM target-state initiatives.
- Target-state ECM governance framework
Develop target-state ECM operating model.
- Target-state ECM operating model
Module 4: Formulate a Plan to Get to Your Target State
The Purpose
- Build initiatives into a plan with responsibilities and timing.
- Define immediate next steps.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Detailed action plan to execute ECM strategy.
- Valuable resources identified to assist in strategy execution.
Activities
Outputs
Identify and prioritize next steps.
- Initialized ECM strategy project roadmap
Define roles and responsibilities and complete a high-level RACI.
- Initialized RACI
Wrap up and discuss next steps and post-workshop support.
- Options for continued Info-Tech support
Develop an Enterprise Content Management Strategy and Roadmap
Organize your documents and files to make your content findable.
EXECUTIVE BRIEF
Analyst Perspective
Good content management empowers digital transformation
Unstructured data – content – makes up over 80% of all our business data. It includes contracts, invoices, resumes, financial agreements, student transcripts, architectural and engineering drawings, recordings, emails, and marketing images. It’s a wide assortment of information types and value. There’s an ever-growing volume with more places in the information landscape for it to live and move.
Remote work has made digital formats like videoconference recordings and online chats a core part of the information deposit. Chats and recordings, along with email, are subject to audit, record retention laws and eDiscovery. Critical records are no longer contained in a central controlled chamber. It’s imperative we understand our increasingly complex information environment and manage it.
That content also holds rich insights and valuable assets – if recognized and made accessible.
Every business process generates and revolves around information. With the arrival of digital transformation, business partners and customers expect answers to their questions instantly and from anywhere. It means untethering our information from individual applications or business units and treating it like the valuable corporate asset it is.
Andrea Malick
Director, Research & Advisory, Data & Analytics Practice
Info-Tech Research Group
Executive Summary
Your Challenge
- Content is a key part of internal workflows and external touchpoints.
- An enterprise content management (ECM) capability manages the quality, findability, delivery, and risk of your content across organizational processes.
- The need for an ECM strategy, either on its own or as part of broader information management, is increasingly apparent in organizations everywhere.
Common Obstacles
- The volume of organizational content continues to grow exponentially.
- The Digital Revolution is accelerating market disruption and forcing organizations to transform or die.
- The lack of an ECM body of knowledge for developing ECM strategies and capabilities makes defining a roadmap a challenging, if not impossible, endeavor for non-experts.
Info-Tech’s Approach
- Set the scope for your ECM strategy. Understand the four major forces (ECM use cases, content-centric processes, external parties, and compliance and risk) that define ECM operating models. Identify the current priorities within each. Tackle manageable slices of your ECM solution – build foundations while fixing real pains.
- Understand the root causes behind your ECM improvement opportunities. Systematically review the in-scope elements of your ECM operating model to generate a comprehensive list of potential improvements. Transform this insight into a future-state vision for your ECM capability.
- Build an ECM roadmap collaboratively. Leverage the input of stakeholders from across the organization to determine the work required to cross the chasm from your current to future state.
- Invest in change management. Current content management capabilities are powerful and customizable for a positive user experience. But those capabilities mean a shift in how we relate to our information and do things (e.g. using metadata instead of folders and subfolders). Ensure users and stakeholders are consulted and informed early and often.
Info-Tech Insights
- ECM is critical to organizational survival. ECM underpins effective information management, which is vital to surviving and thriving in the Digital Revolution.
- Engage many hands to make light work. Changing your ECM capabilities is about changing organizational behavior; take an all-hands-on-deck approach to make the most of information gathering, create a vested interest, and secure buy-in.
- ECM is a living, breathing thing, and world-class ECM capabilities are not built overnight. Be realistic about what you can achieve in this iteration based on your organization’s maturity.
Frame the problem
This research is for:
- CIOs charged with mandates for innovation or digital transformations.
- Information, records, and content managers charged with optimizing information management practices.
This research will help you:
- Systematically scope out the focus of your ECM strategy.
- Engage with stakeholders to understand your current ECM operation.
- Develop a vision for your ECM capability.
- Build and gain buy-in for your ECM roadmap.
- Coordinate the execution of your ECM roadmap.
This research will also assist:
- CEOs looking to get the most out of ECM investments.
- Heads of lines of business (LOBs) looking to drive higher quality and risk management from their content operation.
- Process owners looking to increase efficiency through improved access to and delivery of content assets.
This research will help them:
- Understand the importance of an ECM capability to long-term organizational success.
- Prepare for and make the most out of information-gathering sessions required to assess current operations.
- Contextualize their role in the ECM roadmap.
- Bring to life and sustain an effective and strategically aligned ECM capability.
The data journey
Effective data management requires a cross-functional approach that engages both the business and IT.
What is content management?
Content is everywhere in the business
ECM can look very different for different organizations and use cases. It can be focused on storing documents for reference and findability. Or it can be managing complex information sets through workflows for regulatory compliance, from when files are scanned and digitized to when they are archived.
ECM is a comprehensive set of capabilities and tools. Your job is to find the right mix of these ingredients to make a solution – both tactical and strategic.
Definition: Enterprise Content Management (ECM)
“Enterprise content management is the systematic collection and organization of information that is to be used by a designated audience – business executives, customers, etc. Neither a single technology nor a methodology nor a process, it is a dynamic combination of strategies, methods, and tools used to capture, manage, store, preserve, and deliver information supporting key organizational processes through its entire lifecycle.”
Definition: Content
“Content is information produced through editorial process and ultimately intended for human consumption via publication.”
(Source: Barker, 2021)
This description of content is important because we are designing ECM experiences for different groups: the content author (or manager) and the consumer.
“Content is information produced through editorial process and ultimately intended for human consumption via publication.”
(Source: Barker, 2021)
This description of content is important because we are designing ECM experiences for different groups: the content author (or manager) and the consumer.
Different types of content
ECM includes documents, records, digital assets, and web content.
Each of these types of content requires different practices and technology solutions.
Information management model
Drivers |
Governance |
Information Architecture |
Process |
Policy |
Systems Architecture |
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Case Study
INDUSTRY - Municipal Government
SOURCE - Info-Tech Research Group
An ECM roadmap allowed the City to obtain buy-in from senior management for an upgrade of its ECM capability
The City of Cambridge
The City of Cambridge, located in Ontario, is one of three cities making up Canada’s Technology Triangle. Canada’s 38th largest city, Cambridge is home to 130,000 residents. The City worked with Info-Tech to develop an ECM vision, system requirements, roadmap, and execution toolkit.
ECM Initiative
Faced with increasing volumes of content to manage and pain points with legacy content management processes, the City decided to develop an enterprise-wide strategy. Having used an ECM system to manage records, the City was considering how it could use technology to improve other content management operations across the organization. However, the need to represent perspectives of seven departments with over 75 unique divisions and services would require a well-thought-out plan.
Results
Working collaboratively, the City’s IT and records management divisions assembled a project team and conducted operational assessments with key stakeholders from other departments. With stakeholder input, they defined a future-state vision, built a roadmap, and assembled an execution toolkit. The ECM project team was able to present a confident plan to executives to secure project and budget approval.
The Digital Revolution is (finally) upon us
The advancement of organizational process and technology from analog to digital has been underway since the 1980s. Today we have reached the tipping point.
Three mega-innovations drive organizations toward digital transformation:
Digital Revolution
- Powerhouse Computing
- Scalar CPUs
- In-Memory Databases/SSD
- Neural Networks
- Massive Computer Arrays
- Quantum Computing
- Seamless Connectivity
- 5G Network
- Global Internet
- Four Billion Connected Users
- One Trillion Devices
- Zero Distance
- Extreme Automation
- Robotics & Autos
- 3D Printing
- Digital User Experience
- Artificial Intelligence
- Machine-to-Machine (Internet of Things)
Info-Tech Insight
As the innovations of today diffuse more generally into the global economy, Info-Tech sees two massive impacts:
Accelerated Large-Scale Disruption
We will see a rapid emergence of newer, faster, and more direct models of design, production, and delivery. Pioneering businesses will displace legacy organizations (think Netflix and Blockbuster) and industries (think Uber and the taxi industry). Leaner workforces will produce exponentially more output, leveraging intuitive cognitive systems and outsourced or subscription-based services. Higher-order skill sets will be demanded as automation takes over in physical, clerical, analytical, professional, and creative labor markets.
Cultural Transformation Is Required to Survive
Since 2000, 52% of Fortune 500 companies have disappeared from the market (Capgemini, 2015). Surviving the Digital Revolution requires organizations to go beyond localized process automation to enable a culture of innovation at every level and in every facet. Highly consumerized next-gen software- and platform-as-a-service (SaaS and PaaS) offerings will put process automation (and even application development capabilities) directly in the hands of users, and the traditional role of IT will be increasingly a shared organizational responsibility.
IT departments can no longer just lead digital innovation, they must actively enable it at every level of the organization
IT departments play a critical role in shepherding organizations through their transformation and in empowering organizations to thrive in the long term.
Democratizing innovation requires rethinking the traditional departmental role of IT.
Companies that are best positioned to weather, survive, and thrive in the Digital Revolution are those that understand the potential crowdsourcing has for innovation discovery and that proactively enable an “IT mindset” for as many end users as possible. Info-Tech identifies three functions IT departments can adopt to democratize innovation in their organizations.
Managing content effectively is a prerequisite of a successful enterprise information management operation
Enterprise content management (ECM) is an important building block in establishing potent enterprise information management (EIM), and strong EIM is a steppingstone to unlocking higher-order information capabilities that power innovation.
Info-Tech’s Hierarchy of Organizational Information Capabilities
Info-Tech Insight
This blueprint provides a methodology to build out your ECM capability. For guidance on other information management capabilities, including enterprise data management, please see Info-Tech’s EIM resources:
An effective ECM capability enables content quality, findability, delivery, and risk management across the information lifecycle
As a concept, ECM is the strategies, methods, and technology used to manage electronic and physical documents and files to support organizational processes.
Info-Tech’s ECM Information Lifecycle Model:
Info-Tech Insight
As organizations shift from analog to digital, content operations must transform from paper to paperless. Very few organizations have actually adopted the paperless workplace. While remote work has decreased printing and scanning significantly, 56% of workers are still printing and 50% are still scanning even while working from home (O’Reilly, 2021) As your organization shifts to paperless processes, behaviors will fundamentally change (e.g. manual to automatic, carbon-based to silicon-based), affecting decisions and actions at every stage of the information lifecycle.
Effective ECM capabilities are built on and supported by well-informed ECM system architecture
ECM technology is mature, blending together many functions across the information lifecycle.
ECM system offerings include:
- Version control
- Document & records management
- Automated workflows
- Access controls
- Metadata management
- Mobile
- Search
- Capture channels
- File conversion
- eDiscovery audit trail
- Co-authoring
Info-Tech Insight
Refer to Info-Tech’s SoftwareReviews categories for ECM software and document management systems for the latest vendor scorecards based on user experience.
From an organization’s perspective, there are two broad categories of ECM use cases that must be addressed
Effective ECM capabilities are built on a strong understanding of the organizational use cases they support.
Mission-Critical ECM |
Operational ECM |
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Description |
Mission-critical content initiates, drives, and supports front-office, customer-facing processes and functions. Mission-critical ECM is primarily concerned with delivering on the core mandate of an organization. |
Operational content lives in back-office processes and administration functions. Operational ECM is primarily concerned with internal day-to-day organizational operations. |
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Related Content Types |
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Tech. Focus |
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(1) Depending on organizational needs, preservation ECM may be viewed as a third ECM use case.
Info-Tech Insight
Harnessing your content has never been more vital. Exponential data growth isn’t expected to plateau anytime soon; yearly data creation reached 64.2 zettabytes in 2020 (IDC, 2021). Remaining still in the face of this growth is a recipe for disaster, and in the Digital Revolution, taking a casual approach to ECM is ill-advised. Organizations must truly understand their specific ECM use cases to develop optimal ECM information architecture, flexible information governance, and informed system definition and selection.
Effectively address your ECM use cases with an integrated, programmatic ECM capability
Master the six subdisciplines of ECM to unlock true content management excellence in support of mission-critical and operational use cases.
Info-Tech’s ECM Capability Conceptual Framework:
Info-Tech defines an organization’s ECM capability as six interrelated concepts working together to enable superior content access and delivery for an organization:
- Information architecture, which enables content findability within ECM operations.
- Information governance, which enables content management quality assurance, security, and risk management.
- Process management, which enables content to move through processes and workflows.
- System architecture, which enables automation of content management.
- Change management, which introduces new ECM capabilities to users.
- Capability governance, which sustains and provides continuous improvement to the entire ECM operation.
Info-Tech Insight
Get with the program – start building out an effective ECM capability as soon as possible. Focus on your current business needs and prioritization, such as digitizing legacy content or focusing on incoming content first. In an AIIM survey, 43% of respondents said they were figuring out what to do with the content they already had and 57% were figuring out what to do with new content coming into the organization (AIIM, 2020).
ECM success can be measured by process efficiency, resource efficiency, and risk mitigation
In its own right, ECM plays an important role in running an intelligent, efficient, and lean organization.
ECM Process Efficiency |
ECM Resource Efficiency |
ECM Risk Mitigation |
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“More than 50% of office pros spend more time searching for files than on work.” TechRepublic, 2021 |
“Nearly 1 in 5 ... office professionals surveyed ranked ‘digging for files they need’ as the No. 1 problem to support the future of remote work.” TechRepublic, 2021 |
“If a medical file is stored incorrectly, an organization can incur fines starting at Iron Mountain |
Pains:
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Gains
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What you can achieve with an ECM strategy largely depends on your current maturity
The transformational journey to unlock ECM excellence is a very hard one. Set realistic executive expectations with a roadmap aimed at achieving “innovator” status through gradual advances in your ECM capability maturity.
Info-Tech’s ECM Capability Maturity Model
Information Architecture | Information Governance | Process Management | System Architecture | Change Management | Capability Governance |
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You need a systematic approach to connect ECM roadmap work initiatives to your organization’s objectives
Info-Tech’s three-phase ECM strategy development methodology enables a systematic and comprehensive model to assess ECM operations and identify, evaluate, and prioritize roadmap work initiatives in accordance with organizational need
1. Scope |
2. Understand |
3. Build |
---|---|---|
ECM Strategy |
ECM Operational Assessment |
ECM Roadmap Development Framework |
Any number of forces may impact your ECM operations. Use Info-Tech’s ECM strategy scoping framework to identify and prioritize the most important and urgent elements. | Building a well-informed roadmap means understanding your current complexity and improvement opportunities. Use Info-Tech’s ECM operational assessment to elicit these insights. | Realizing your ECM vision requires a coordinated project plan. Use Info-Tech’s ECM roadmap development framework to build a comprehensive, detailed action plan in an à la carte fashion. |
In this project phase, Info-Tech walks through the process of defining your ECM operating model. | In this project phase, Info-Tech introduces two operational assessments to help you define a clear future vision for your ECM capability. | In this project phase, Info-Tech provides decision-making models to select and scope ECM work initiatives to realize your ECM vision. |
Info-Tech Insight
Ensure your organization is among the six in ten whose ECM projects succeed. Roughly 35 to 40% of ECM projects fail (Moore, 2021), which is explained by failure to involve stakeholders and lack of a strategic plan. Ensure you are on the winning side of history; take a systematic approach to building out your ECM capability, leveraging Info-Tech’s ECM strategy development methodology and tools.
Develop a highly detailed roadmap to coordinate the work to build and maintain your ECM capability with Info-Tech
Info-Tech’s ECM Roadmap Creation Tool provides three levels of project planning insight, enabling easy creation, communication, and coordination of tasks that will bring your ECM vision to life.
Level 1 |
Level 2 | Level 3 |
---|---|---|
ECM Project Phases |
ECM Work Initiatives |
ECM Action Plans |
Displays timing for major project phases. |
Displays ordering and timing for specific work initiatives. |
Displays work initiative activities, stakeholder resourcing, inputs, outputs, risks, mitigations, success factors, and related Info-Tech resources. |
Developing the roadmap is only half the battle; motivate and mobilize project stakeholders with a roadmap execution toolkit
Don’t let your ECM project plan sit on the shelf. Minimize the friction and effort required and secure executive buy-in by providing well-designed templates and tools to help execute each ECM roadmap work initiative.
ECM Capability Area | Info-Tech’s ECM Roadmap Execution Toolkit Items | Value to ECM Capability |
---|---|---|
Information Architecture | The information architecture toolkit is a set of simple-to-use tools to help any user in your organization design and conduct content audits, determine content migration plans, and design and communicate taxonomy and access rights plans to integrate these into your ECM system. | |
Information Governance | The information governance toolkit has 11 templates that allow you to comprehensively set up checks and balances to ensure quality and risk mitigation for all content at each stage of the information lifecycle. | |
Process Management | The process mapping toolkit enables a holistic set of best practices, tools, and templates to help identify, prioritize, design, and implement process transformations. | |
System Architecture | The system architecture toolkit provides a one-stop shop for understanding the ECM technology market and executing well-informed ECM system requirements definition, vendor evaluation, and selection. | |
Change Management | The change management toolkit allows you to catalog the impacts your ECM vision will have on the organization and to develop training, communications, and rollout plans to address them in a manner fit for your culture and maturity. | |
Capability Governance | The capability governance toolkit is a framework for planning and executing the governance of your ECM capability at different levels of formality (i.e. from basic responsibilities and roles to more complex governance committees or a center of excellence). |
Refer to Info-Tech’s ECM terminology and acronyms table for additional clarification
The following terminology and acronyms are commonly used throughout this document; refer to this slide as needed as you work through each step in developing your ECM strategy and roadmap.
Term | Definition |
---|---|
ECM | Enterprise content management: the strategies, methods, and technology used to manage electronic and physical documents and files to support organizational operations. |
ECM Operation | The current state of an organization’s content management practices; how content is managed at this point in time. |
ECM Operating Model | A four-piece model to help understand the relevant forces at play in any ECM operation. |
ECM Capability | An organizational function that includes people, processes, and technology that work together to manage content across an organization. Info-Tech defines six subdisciplines within the ECM capability model. |
ECM Strategy/ECM Vision | The specific vision an organization decides upon for its future ECM capability. |
ECM Roadmap | A comprehensive plan denoting the work initiatives required to build out an organization’s ECM capability as aligned to its strategy/vision, including activities, timing, roles, and responsibilities. |
ECM Roadmap Work Initiative | Sometimes abbreviated as WI, work initiatives refer to the different activities that make up the ECM roadmap. |
Insight summary
Overarching insight
The modern enterprise content management environment is a business solution, driven by and overseen by the business. Where once ECM communities were highly contained and were administered primarily by IT, they are now designed to be integrated with and responsive to business operations. This is a cultural shift requiring a new way of interacting with technology, with information, and with each other.
Insight 1
To survive and thrive in this tumultuous time, organizations everywhere are moving toward more intelligent ways of unearthing, communicating, and acting upon insights in the formats desired by the people in their organization. At the foundation of strong information management is an effective ECM capability on which process and system automation can be built.
Insight 2
ECM is a huge concept; be realistic and do not bite off more than you can chew.
Consider your organization’s ECM capability maturity, in addition to ECM objectives and resource constraints, to create a realistic vision for what you can achieve with this current iteration and what will have to wait for future releases.
Insight 3
An ECM capability is a living, breathing thing; plan to upgrade it over time with new releases.
The ideal ECM capability is the result of mastering all the capabilities of ECM, such as governance and information architecture. However, mastering all of these simultaneously is extremely difficult for most organizations.
Tactical insight
Tailor your ECM program to meet your organization’s needs, beginning with cataloging content as critical, valuable, regulatory, and other. This will help manage the work and the sense of overwhelm, and it will help apply the right weight of governance to where it’s needed. We can’t and shouldn’t try to govern everything to the same degree. Focus on what really matters for the business and for compliance.
When it comes to rolling out an ECM program, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Don’t try to buy a ready-made information architecture off the shelf. It takes time and expertise up-front and must engage users in the solution –
but the result is transformative.
Blueprint Deliverables
Each step of this blueprint is accompanied by supporting deliverables to help you accomplish your goals:
Key deliverable:
ECM Strategy Roadmap
Business Capability Map
ECM Strategy Roadmap Creation Tool
Use the ECM Strategy Roadmap Creation Tool to identify focus areas and work initiatives and drill down to a detailed plan with timelines and assigned responsibilities.
ECM Use Case Framework Template
This template takes you through a business needs-gathering activity to highlight and create relevant use cases around the organization’s information-related problems and opportunities.
ECM Strategy Development Project Charter
Use this template to document the scope and key roles and responsibilities of the ECM strategy development project.
ECM Information Flow and System Architecture Template
Use this template to understand your information landscape with users and build a future state.
Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs
DIY Toolkit
“Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful.”
Guided Implementation
“Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track.”
Workshop
“We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place.”
Consulting
“Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project.”
Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options
Develop an ECM Strategy and Roadmap: Project overview
Contact your account representative for more information.
workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889
1. Understand Business Drivers |
2. Assess Capabilities and Define Future State |
3. Build a Target-State Roadmap and Plan |
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Phase Steps |
1.1 Understand and Align to Business Drivers 1.2 Build High-Value Use Cases 1.3 Define Scope and Vision of Your ECM Strategy Project |
2.1 Profile ECM Operations and Opportunities 2.2 Identify Root Causes 2.3 Document Future State |
3.1 Evaluate ECM Work Initiatives 3.2 Socialize and Validate ECM Roadmap 3.3 Execute ECM Roadmap |
Phase Outcomes |
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Guided Implementation
What does a typical GI on this topic look like?
Phase 1 | Phase 2 | Phase 3 | ||
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Call #1: Understand drivers, business context, and scope of ECM at your organization. Introduce Info-Tech’s approach and resources. |
Call #2: Provide a detailed overview of Info-Tech’s approach, framework, stakeholder engagement, and blueprint. |
Call #4: Further discuss the organization’s alignment of business capabilities to ECM capabilities and use case framework. |
Call #6: Plan target state and corresponding initiatives. |
Call #8: Identify and prioritize improvements. |
Call #3: Introduce business capabilities. Align them with your ECM capabilities. Begin to develop a use case framework. |
Call #5: Understand and assess your current ECM capabilities and data environment. Review your user feedback findings, if applicable. |
Call #7: Identify program risks and formulate a roadmap. |
Call #9: Summarize results and plan next steps. |
A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.
A typical GI is between 8 to 12 calls over the course of 4 to 6 months.
Workshop Overview
Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | |
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Establish Business Context and Value | Understand Current ECM Capabilities and Plot Target-State Levels | Plan ECM Work Initiatives | Formulate a Plan to Get to Your Target State | |
Activities |
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Deliverables |
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Phase 1
Understand Business Context and Drivers for the ECM Project
- 1.1 Understand and Align to Business Drivers
- 1.2 Build High-Value Use Cases
- 1.3 Define the Scope and Vision of Your ECM Strategy Project
Develop an Enterprise Content Management Strategy and Roadmap
“When business users are invited to participate in the conversation around data with data users and IT, it adds a fundamental dimension — business context. Without a real understanding of how data ties back to the business, the value of analysis and insights can get lost.”– Jason Lim, Alation
This phase will guide you through the following activities:
- Identify your business drivers and business capabilities
- Align content management capabilities with business goals
- Define scope of the ECM strategy
This phase involves the following participants:
- Content management lead/information management lead, CDO, data lead
- Senior business leaders
- Business subject matter experts (SMEs)
- Content owners, records managers, regulatory subject matter experts (e.g. Legal Counsel, Security)