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Content Management Technologies and Alphabet Soup: 26 Tips to Spell Success

Content management technologies advance so quickly that it’s hard to keep up. From enterprise content management (ECM) to electronic document management (EDM), business process management (BPM), business intelligence (BI), EDRM (electronic document and records management), records and information management (RIM) and more, technology increasingly resembles a bowl of alphabet soup. So many acronyms are floating around that it’s hard to know what order to put the letters in and what they’re supposed to spell.

Whether you’re scanning files for historical reference, providing information access via a customer portal, or are in the midst of enterprise-wide process automation, there are standard steps you should take that will help you to succeed. No matter what acronym your solution spells or what your goals are, these 26 steps should be applied and revisited throughout your project implementation. If you miss one, your project might turn out a bit differently from what you are hoping for. How and when you use each tip is up to you, but be sure to use them all!

Align your business and IT goals. Some of the greatest project failures result from a mismatch. IT’s role is to support business objectives, but IT resources are often stretched. Educate each other. Negotiate.

Budget carefully. Software and hardware alone don’t represent Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). Customizations, disaster recovery planning, training, and testing carry costs. Plan accordingly.

Collaborate with all of your department managers. Set enterprise goals even if you’re starting with a departmental project. Think globally. Otherwise, you‘ll find yourself reworking projects unnecessarily.

Document your business processes carefully. Diagram the steps in each process. Know where processes and documents intersect. Look for duplication that can be streamlined or eliminated.

Evaluate project goals against your company’s 1-year, 3-year, and 5-year vision. Know where your company and your department want to be in the future. Does your project support those goals?

Fight to do things right the first time. It’s better to take on a smaller project and do it well than to fail to meet end goals. Pick a painful process first, or one where automation will produce substantial ROI.

Gauge employee readiness for change. Resistance can lead to sabotage. Don’t keep your employees in the dark about your goals. Show your employees how you plan to help them succeed.

Hire outside services wherever you lack time, skills, or resources. If there are too many slowdowns, hiccups or delays, your project will miss deadlines, won’t be taken seriously, and may risk irrelevancy.

Involve your staff. Understanding, improving, and automating processes requires knowing every aspect of your business. Getting to the bottom of how things really work requires everyone’s help.

Judge no one. You can’t embrace every scheme for improvement, but you need creative ideas. If you squash a few, you may silence the voices you need to reach your potential. Be a good listener.

Keep nothing that isn’t essential. If there isn’t a regulation requiring you keep a document–and you know it isn’t important for legal, historical, or business reference–get rid of it. No more clutter!

Learn what you can from peers and colleagues. Check with others who have implemented similar solutions. What advice do they have from their experiences? What would they do differently?

Maximize efficiency wherever possible. Is similar information collected for multiple departments? Are more people involved in a process than necessary? Can forms or steps be condensed or eliminated?

Notify your vendor immediately when expectations aren’t being met. Most problems result from miscommunication, not poor technology. Address problems while they’re small. Don’t let them fester.

Orchestrate efficiency with smart integration. To recycle meaningful information wherever it has value, information technologies must be connected. Otherwise, you’re underutilizing your data.

Prepare staff for change. Make sure you not only have a training program in place; communicate early and often with employees to allay concerns. Remember, you want them to succeed. Help them to do it.

Question how things are done and make improvements. Just because you’ve done something a certain way for years doesn’t mean it’s still relevant. Automating poor processes makes them faster, not better.

Review goals regularly and make adjustments. Even though it’s important to stick to your vision, sometimes things are discovered mid-way that demand rethinking. Schedule periodic reviews.

Start small (but think big). Even though technology projects should be designed with enterprise goals in mind, start small and build on each success. Set realistic, achievable goals. Employees will value that.

Test, test, test. Whether you’re scanning documents, automating routine processes, or mechanizing your retention program, make sure it works. Testing is relatively cheap. Fixing things later is costly.

Understand the needs of everyone on your team. Encourage ideas for ongoing improvements. Plan face time as a group so diverse needs and possible solutions can be discussed. Keep an open mind.

Verify what you think you understand. Restate goals along with next steps. Clarify who is responsible for what, by which time, and required resources. Put expectations and deliverables in writing.

Work diligently toward your goals. Internal demands can distract staff from project goals. Give staff the time and resources they need to stay focused. If you can’t, hire your vendor or other qualified help.

Xerox no more. Capture information at the start of the information cycle–upon creation or receipt–not at the end of your processes. Otherwise you’re spending money unnecessarily and losing efficiency.

Yield to cost cutting with great caution. If you budget your hardware, software, integration, upgrades, and staffing needs carefully, and put all expectations in writing, you shouldn’t need to cut.

Zero in on success. Mark milestones. Frame your first shredded file. Hand out t-shirts when ROI is achieved. Give a pat on the back. Show appreciation to encourage repeat performance. Celebrate!

About the Author

Laurel Sanders joined Optical Image Technology as the Director of Marketing in August, 2004 and was named Director of PR and Communications in January of 2008.  Business articles by Laurel have been featured regularly in imageSource, Office World News, TAWPI’s today, document, and ECM Connection.   www.docfinity.com

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