Dr Kate Andrews is a partner at BDO Kendalls (QLD), and Kate’s area of specialty is intellectual capital and knowledge management. Kate looks for very practical outcomes from knowledge management to benefit the business, and I can’t recommend Kate highly enough as a KM practitioner. Kate and I, though, often work with clients together in the area of information management and knowledge management. There are a great number of aspects to a knowledge management strategy that are very relevant to business, and a great many of these aspects are extremely interesting, engaging, and fire the imagination of clients.
Perhaps unfortunately, information management is not, perhaps, shall we say, the most sexy of aspects of knowledge management to pursue. Unfortunately for those that are really intrigued by the more exotic aspects of KM, information management is the absolute foundation building block of a successful knowledge management strategy. It is very difficult to manage your knowledge if you can’t manage your information. And so Kate and I frequently work together in the area of knowledge management and information management to get good client outcomes.
The most practical application of information management that we have found is the framework adopted by the Government Chief Information Office in New South Wales, although these have now been withdrawn from circulation and are in the process of being revised. These identify specific activities around audit, copyright, framework, inventory, liability, data quality, and information custodianship. BDO Kendalls uses this framework to provide an information management strategy based around our usual approach (three month milestones, defined work programs, and capability growth for the business in the area of information management for critical information types).Â
One of the major variations we use to the NSW approach is that today we think more seriously around the use of a folksonomy instead of a formal taxonomy. Although it – to my logical accountant brain – is illogical and irrational and makes no sense whatsoever, we find that this approach gives our clients 80% of the benefits for 20% of the effort (well, approximately – there’s never an argument with the pareto principle is there?).Â
Future information management posts will provide an overview of information management and build a library around the topic.Â