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Designing a Document Management Strategy
Article #6:
Assessing Document Technology
(Read more articles in this series)
By Kevin Craine
In my last column, we looked at how to use the “Pareto Principle” to select the most vitally important documents to target for your document strategy (see archive). This time we’ll examine the technology used to create, produce, and process those documents. What are the requirements of the process? How do things get done, and why? What are the strengths and weaknesses of your current technology? The scope of your assessment may cover a wide range of technology so avoid becoming sidetracked by concentrating on your target documents only, and the process and technologies used to create them.
Assessing Current Technology
In my book, “Designing a Document Strategy,” I suggest that one way to assess your document technology is to follow your target documents through their life cycle. While the life cycle of a document can be described in various ways, assume your documents have these phases in common:
| Creation: |
Assembling information into a purposeful design. |
| Production: |
Presenting and delivering a document on paper or in digital form. |
| Revision: |
Reusing or updating a document, or parts of it, for an assortment of reasons. |
| Archive: |
Storing a document for later retrieval. |
| Retirement: |
A document destroyed or deleted, or perhaps simply forgotten for good. |
Follow each of your target documents through this life cycle. What are the technological aspects and requirements of the process?
Creation
- Where does the information come from that populates the document?
- How is the format designed?
- How must data, text and graphic elements come together?
Production
- How is the document produced, processed and presented?
- What software and hardware is used in the process?
- Is equipment overworked or underutilized?
Revision
- How are revisions to the document achieved?
- Are the original authors revising the document, or someone else?
- Does the document get revised and repurposed for other uses?
Archive
- How is the document saved and archived?
- What software and hardware is used to store and access it?
- When retrieved, will the document resume its prior format or be used in different ways?
Retirement
- Once the document reaches the end of its useful life, how is the document retired?
- What software and hardware is used?
- Will pieces of the original document live on in other incarnations?
Assessing New Technology
With the assessment of your current technology completed, you are now in a good position to assess how trends in technology may be of potential benefit in the future. This may require that you look "outside the box" of what you are familiar and comfortable with. Ask questions like:
- Can we do things differently?
- What are the "best practices" in the industry?
- Who is successful using what technology?
- Do new trends have potential in your environment?
- What technologies can enhance your current systems?
- What technologies should take the place of systems that we know have to be replaced?
The development curve of new technology is double-edged. On one hand, innovation provides a seemingly endless selection of solutions to choose from. On the other hand, finding the right technology for your particular situation may not be easy. In my next column, we’ll continue to examine specific steps and methods to use to select the right technology solutions. Check out the ACOM archives for prior columns.
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 Read more articles in this series
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