Manual for the Design and Implementation of Recordkeeping Systems (dirks)
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Identifying systems for Step D analysis
Overview
What type of systems should be assessed?
Determine the specific systems to assess
Business systems exist in a variety of forms
Focus on all systems performing the business you are analysing
Assess all components of a system
Keep your focus on the business you are examining
Overview
This section discusses the specific types of systems you will be examining in Step D: Assessment of systems. It is intended to help you identify the systems you need to focus on and examines the specific components of those systems that you need to consider.
^
What type of systems should be assessed?
The types of systems you are assessing in this step are those used to perform organizational business operations and which are required to keep evidence of those operations as records. They may be systems that we think of as traditional records management systems, or could be business applications, such as databases or web content management systems and their supporting infrastructure.
In reality, a business system can be anything from an Excel spreadsheet on someone’s hard drive to a system dedicated to a particular activity such as HR or financial management, to a million dollar database accessible via your website. It is also important that you evaluate every system involves processes that may have evidential requirements. This includes familiar automated systems such as accounting, human resource and client information applications that may not function as recordkeeping systems.
Any system which conducts organizational business activities and from which you require evidence of its operations should be included in the scope of your assessment.
| ^ Tip: Seek advice If you are having trouble identifying all relevant systems, or want to ensure that you have examined all relevant systems, seek the advice of staff who perform the business activity you are assessing to make sure you have got everything covered. |
Determine the specific systems to assess
When undertaking Step D, you will generally be focused on a specific area of business. You therefore need to target the system or systems that perform that business. When identifying the systems upon which you are to perform your assessment, you should bear a number of points in mind:
- business systems exist in a variety of forms
- focus on all systems performing the business you are examining, and
- assess all components of a system.
| Tip: Focus on systems The focus of your assessment of existing systems should be the broad systems used to manage records created in your department/section. Do not focus too much on the individual records that are managed within the system - your focus should be on how these records are managed and the qualities of the system within which they are kept. |
Business systems exist in a variety of forms
Be aware that business systems can exist in any form – they can be purely electronic, they can be paper based or they can be hybrid systems. Hybrid systems represent a mixture of electronic and paper based components. Systems can be also small, discrete and located in one specific area of your business, or they can be large and diverse structures that span a number of geographically diverse business areas.
| ^ Tip: Only assess systems from which you require evidence You may have systems which are managed for their information value only – they transact no business and no evidence is required of their operations. Such systems generally contain timely, manipulable information. A database containing name and address details of your clients is an example of such a system. You don’t need to include these in your system assessment. Remember, you only need to include in your assessment those systems from which you require evidence of their operations. |
Focus on all systems performing the business you are examining
Whether you are doing DIRKS as a whole-of-organization exercise or whether you are focussing on a specific area of business, you will need to assess ALL systems in the functional areas you are focussing on, not just those which are known to be operating as recordkeeping systems.
| ^ Example: Poor information systems contribute to collapse of national banks in Jamaica In the late 1990s, a number of large national banks collapsed in Jamaica, precipitating a national financial crisis. In the years since the collapse, research has been done into some of the recordkeeping-related causes of the crisis. Poor business information systems, and the number of ad-hoc and uncontrolled systems adopted to circumvent these, created a number of problems. Since the banks’ existing computer systems lacked the functionality to produce the types of reports that managers required, managers tended to create and use ad hoc reports using popular spreadsheet software (eg Excel)… Many of these spreadsheets provided what could be viewed as important evidence of decisions concerning critical bank business functions such as asset and liability management, budgeting and loan loss provisioning, however, the informal way in which managers created and kept these spreadsheets often led to dissolution of the meaning in these records over time…the spreadsheet software had no features that automatically linked spreadsheet documents…to the business transactions and processes from which these records had been created… Over time, the context in which the Jamaican bank managers had created these records became more distant and the significance of the records and their meaning became more obscure…Moreover, the records’ meaning and significance often were lost completely because of the ease with which the technology for storing spreadsheets permitted alterations and deletions of computer files, a characteristic which also undermined accounting and accountability for the banks’ financial transactions. [2] |
Talking to action officers and drawing on your analysis conducted in previous steps of the methodology will help you to be aware of all possible systems that should be incorporated into your assessments, including those ad hoc ones that way have been created as ways around existing problems.
| ^ Tip: Systems can span business units Be aware that systems may cut across business units - not all systems that perform a particular function will be located in the one section of your department/section. If you undertook process analysis in Step B: Analysis of business activity, you can refer to this documentation to identify the disparate business areas and systems that you need to examine. |