Enterprise Document Management: A Remarkable Point of View
March 3, 2020
DarkCyber spotted “What Is an Enterprise Document Management (EDM) System? How to Implement Full Document Control.” The write up is lengthy, running about 4,000 words. There are pictures like this one:
ECM is enterprise content management and in the middle is Enterprise Document Management which is abbreviated DMS, not EDM.
The idea is that documents have to be managed, and DarkCyber assumes that most organizations do not manage their content — regardless of its format — particularly well until the company is involved in a legal matter. Then document management becomes the responsibility of the lawyers.
In order to do any type of document or content management, employees have to follow the rules. The rules are the underlying foundation of the article. A company manufacturing interior panels for an automaker will have to have a product management system, an system to deal with drawings (paper and digital), supplier data, and other bits and pieces to make sure the “door cards” are produced.
The problem is that guidelines often do not translate into consistent employee behavior. One big reason is that the guidelines don’t fit into the work flows and the incentive schemes do not reward the time and effort required to make sure the information ends up in the “system.” Many professionals write something, text it, and move on. Enterprise systems typically do not track fine grained information very well.
Like enterprise search, the “document management” folks try to make workers who may be concerned about becoming redundant, a sick child, an angry boss, or any other perturbation in the consultant’s checklist ignore many information rules.
There is an association focused on records management. There are companies concerned with content management. There are vendors who focus on images, videos, audio, and tweets.
The myth that an EDM, ECM, or enterprise search system can create an affordable, non invasive, legally compliant, and effective way to deal with the digital fruit cake in organizations is worth lots of money.
The problem is that these systems, methods, guidelines, data lakes, federation technologies, smart software, etc. etc. don’t work.
The article does a good job of explaining what a consultant recommends. The information it presents provides fodder for the marketing animals who are going to help sell systems, training, and consulting.
The reality is that humans generate information and use a range of systems to produce content. Tweets about a missed shipment from a person mobile phone may be prohibited. Yeah, explain that to the person who got the order in the door and kept the commitment to the customer.
There are conferences, blogs, consulting firms, reports, and BrightPlanet videos about managing information.
The write up states:
There is no use documenting and managing poor workflows, processes, and documentation. To survive in business, you have to adapt, change and improve. That means continuously evaluating your business operations to identify shortfalls, areas for improvements, and strengths for continuous investment. Regular internal audits of your management systems will enable you to evaluate the effectiveness of your Enterprise Document Management solution.
Right. When these silver bullet, pie-in-the-sky solutions cost more than budgeted, employees quit using them, and triage costs threaten the survival of the company — call in the consultants.
Today’s systems do not work with the people actually doing information creation. As a result, most fail to deliver. Sound familiar? It should. You, gentle reader, will never follow the information rules unless you are specifically paid to follow them or given an ultimatum like “do this or get fired.”
Tweet that and let me know if you managed that information.
Stephen E Arnold, March 3, 2020
Comments
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
