Manual for the Design and Implementation of Recordkeeping Systems (dirks)
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Use sources from Step A
Many of the sources used in Step A: Preliminary investigation will be pertinent to the analysis of your department/section's business activity. These include:
- internally generated sources such as mission statements, corporate plans, annual reports, organizational charts, policy statements, procedure manuals, information systems documentation, records and forms
For further information about documentary sources, see the Guide to Documentary Sources. Although you may refer to many of the same sources if you are doing Steps A, B and C, it is important to note that you are seeking different information from the sources and working towards different outcomes for each step.
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Conduct interviews
Interviews are used in a number of DIRKS steps. For example, you may have interviewed people in Step A: Preliminary investigation to help you to get an overview of the organization and an understanding of their context. In Step B you can interview people to gain more information about their functions and activities, but also to give you process and transactional information and to verify your analysis. Staff are also aware of ad hoc practices that might go undocumented. An advantage of involving staff is that by contributing they feel they have some ownership of the project and are more likely to accept outcomes.
It can be useful to clarify 'big picture' functions with a group of staff from several parts of the organization and use smaller groups or one-to-one interviews for obtaining the detailed information about processes and transactions.
| Tip: Be prepared for interviews To ensure you do not waste staff time you should be prepared fully before interviews take place. This may involve preparing questions relating to a number of DIRKS steps. |
Hierarchical analysis
Overview
What is hierarchical analysis?
Stages in hierarchical analysis
Overview
Once you have established the scope of your project and collected sources, you can apply two main types of analysis used to understand your business activity - hierarchical analysis and sequential analysis. There are several useful reference sources to assist you with the analysis. [2] You should then analyze the risks associated with your business activities.
This section describes what hierarchical analysis is and the steps in performing the analysis.
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What is hierarchical analysis?
Hierarchical analysis involves taking a 'big picture' view of your department/section's business activity and then breaking it down into more detailed parts. You look first at the goals and strategies, then at component parts - the functions, activities and transactions. The boundaries of your analysis will be based on your project's scope.
Functions
A function is 'a set of related and ongoing activities of the business.' [3] Functions represent the major responsibilities that are managed by the organization to fulfill its goals. Functions are high-level aggregates of the organization's activities.
Functions are generally not based on organizational structures because they are more stable than administrative units, which are often amalgamated or devolved when restructuring takes place. Functions can also be dispersed across structural components of an organization.
| ^ Example: Functions cut across organizational structures Various UN departments and offices undertake a range of activities relating to finance and audit. Many different organizational units within the United Nations may be involved in performing aspects of this function. |
In some unites there may be multiple layers of functions. There can be very large functions that relate to a number of different UN departments or sections. Very high-level functions are too large to be useful in the Step B business analysis.
| ^ Example: Levels of functions Peacekeeping is an example of a UN function. However, that level of function is too broad for a business analysis. |
Even within a department/section there may be larger and smaller functions and you will need to decide which level you choose for your business analysis.
| ^ Example: Levels of functions Human Resource Management is often considered to be too large a function when producing a record titling classification scheme, so it was broken down into smaller functions like Personnel, Staff Development etc. |
Activities
Functions are then decomposed into smaller (sub) functions or into a discrete and related set of ongoing activities.
Activities are the major tasks performed by the department/section to accomplish each of its functions. An activity should be based on a cohesive grouping of transactions producing a singular outcome.
| Example: Transactions making up an activity Transactions under the activity of 'drafting' may be:
It is a cohesive group that results in the production of a draft. |
Activities should not be based on how records are currently kept, for example as a case, project or event file. Such files might comprise many activities and represent a legitimate way to maintain the record, but the analysis of business activities should represent the component parts.
There may be several activities associated with each function. In some cases, the same activities may occur under a number of different functions.
| ^ Example: Recurring activities Generic activities like giving advice or planning may recur under administrative and core functions. |
Transactions
Transactions are 'the smallest unit of business activity'. [4] In the business classification scheme, they should be represented as tasks, not subjects or record types.
| ^ Example: Transactions within an activity In the Indiana University Electronic Records Project they identified the activity of 'Student grades and credit maintenance.' The transactions were:
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Often transactions relate directly to recordkeeping requirements that are identified in Step C.
It depends very much on the scope of your project whether you will look at each transaction in depth. If you are doing DIRKS to create a classification scheme you may decide to classify more at the level of groups of transactions, subjects or record types than individual transactions.
| ^ Example: Transactions, subjects or record types A transaction may be to 'complete an evaluation form for a training course.' The record type produced from this transaction is the 'evaluation form' and the subject may well be the name of the training course. |
Transactions help you to define the scope of your activity. The identification of transactions will also help:
- to identify what records support the transactions and the recordkeeping requirements related to these (Step C)
- in the formulation of the records description part of a retention schedule.
Relationships between entities
| Example: Relationships between entities Function: Publication - the function of having works, irrespective of format, issued for sale or general distribution internally or to the public. Activity: Drafting - the activities associated with preparing preliminary drafts or outlines of addresses, reports, plans, sketches etc prior to publication. Transaction(s): Create draft copies of publications/website/intranet with associated metadata, distribute drafts for comment, file comments made on these drafts. |