Manual for the Design and Implementation of Recordkeeping Systems (dirks)

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Содержание

Recordkeeping system design may require a mix of skills
Tip: Do not use jargon
Example: Communicate well with IT colleagues
Managing recordkeeping system design
Example: Reliance on partners
Documenting recordkeeping system design
Applying the policy strategy

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Recordkeeping system design may require a mix of skills

System design involves recordkeeping professionals and other experts working with users to produce specifications that best meet:

recordkeeping requirements ( identified needs to create, capture, maintain and dispose of records)
organizational technical, economic and cultural constraints, and
user requirements.

Given that in the contemporary business environment many business activities are conducted electronically, your system design initiatives may require significant IT involvement to ensure that the technical components of systems are adequately designed and implemented, to ensure you are able to meet your recordkeeping requirements.

^ Tip: Do not use jargon

Do not forget that if you are employing additional staff members to undertake system design and development and if these staff are unfamiliar with recordkeeping words and concepts, you will need to provide these staff with a good overview of your project and its recommendations to date. Particularly, make sure all staff understand the recordkeeping 'language' you use. Quite a bit of this terminology may be confusing to other staff or they may misinterpret its meaning. Providing a clear, concise overview will help to avoid any such confusion.

^ Example: Communicate well with IT colleagues

Be sure to communicate your ideas and requirements clearly to IT colleagues, as their support is crucial to any design projects you may want to undertake. Inadequate systems contributed to the Jamaican banking collapse in the late 1990s and inadequate communication with IT staff meant problems were not rectified when they should have been:

One respondent observed that, having identified the need for a different view of the bank’s accounting information, managers experienced difficulties in negotiating the necessary systems changes with information technology staff. Interview subjects suggested that information technology experts’ own assumptions about the significance and meaning and the information being requested made them reluctant to make systems changes. In other words, they simply did not share line management’s understanding of why this information should be needed for accountability purposes. [2]

Clear discussions with your IT staff will enable all parties to understand project requirements and constraints and will contribute to the better development or redevelopment of systems.

Managing recordkeeping system design

At this stage of your project, your DIRKS work may become a multi-team initiative, with staff from IT, training and other areas participating. If you are in this situation, be aware that unanticipated delays and changes may affect your project, as a result of the larger numbers of staff and potentially consultants involved. Other staff will have competing demands and requirements and these may affect your project timetables.

^ Example: Reliance on partners

The University of Indiana which undertook a major multi system assessment project noted that:

In almost every initiative undertaken in this project, we were relying on other partners to meet their obligations and maintain the original timetable. We simply could not control our own fate in the same way one can in a processing or scanning project. [3]

Try to be flexible, but also stress your own project's specific timeframes and deliverables. Talk to other project staff about the importance of your work and the importance to the organization of having it completed.
^

Documenting recordkeeping system design

In Step F you are designing your new or revised system. As you progress with its development, you need to fully document the decisions you are making and the type of system you are designing.

In Step F, some of your documentation will be created as a part of completing the step - for example drafting a policy or developing a training implementation plan. You will also need to create other documentation, such as decisions made about the logical structure of your technical components or revised work processes.

If you do take an iterative, consultative approach to your system design, be sure to fully document any changes to requirements and design components that arise from your consultation.

Creating documentation of recordkeeping system policies, procedures and practices as well as the documentation of the system implementation process is good business practice. It is also a requirement for certification against the ISO 9000 quality standards.
^

Applying the policy strategy

Overview

Establish and maintain recordkeeping policy and procedural documentation

What should policy and procedural documentation say?

Use policy to assign recordkeeping roles and responsibilities

Overview

If in Step E: Identification of strategies for recordkeeping, you selected policy as a strategy that would be of use to your department/section, this section examines how you can deploy policy as a means to improve recordkeeping. It looks at compiling policy and procedural documentation and provides guidance about what these types of documents should say and do.