Managing information during a period of organisational change
Jinfo Blog

By Sarah Dillingham

Abstract

One of the common mistakes to make when designing a KM programme is to make the assumption that your organisation will not restructure in the near future. The reality is that most organisations are in a state of almost constant change, particularly during tough economic conditions. This can have a serious impact on information management. Organisational restructures need to be reflected in URLs, taxonomies, file structures, metadata and content.

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One of the common mistakes to make when designing a KM programme is to make the assumption that your organisation will not restructure in the near future. The reality is that most organisations are in a state of almost constant change, particularly during tough economic conditions.

This can have a serious impact on information management. Organisational restructures need to be reflected in URLs, taxonomies, file structures, metadata and content. These issues are most acute when a company grows through acquisition, or divests a unit, or is bought out. It is essential to future-proof where possible. 

Some good practice tips:

Understand your business and what it needs to operate. Where is the information that people need to do their jobs? Prioritise this and look after it carefully.

Communicate, communicate, communicate – at a time of business change you will need to work harder to get your message through. Business activities continue during a transition and people need to understand where to go to find their information.

Create an information architecture that is based on the activities of the organisation rather than its departmental structure. That way you can avoid unnecessary data migrations every time two departments merge.

Understand the legal landscape. Where are your records? Do you have any copyrighted materials lurking in siloed repositories? It’s astonishing what you find when you start reviewing content.

Develop communities of practice that cut across organisational silos. Following good practice on managing communities by making it easy for staff to join and leave will remove some of the pain of reshaping these communities during a period of change.

Keep information open to all unless there is a strong business case for restriction. This helps to cut down on the need to recreate permission groups during change.

Build contingency time into project plans, and resource to allow for unexpected organisational changes

It is sensible to have a page on your intranet that gives the history of organisational changes so that they are captured to the corporate memory. People have a tendency to keep using old acronyms or names months, and even years, after they have changed, and your new starters will be grateful for clarification.

Useful resources:

• National Archives – standards and practices for records managers
• Gurteen Knowledge community – resources on communities of practice
• Yale University best practices communication plan template

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