I think about this a lot.
As I’m working with customers modernizing and implementing their information governance and records management (IG/RM) programs, I’m seeing a gap between several groups inside an organization. Depending on the size and maturity of the organization, the gap will vary; however, I see it to some degree in all customers I work with.
Understanding and then addressing the touch points between these groups can help to reduce the gaps.
I’ll broadly define the 3 groups I’m referring to for context…
Group 1… SharePoint roles
These are the roles responsible for the overall SharePoint Hub and Site architecture of an organization’s tenant. Since SharePoint has been around for a very long time, these roles often have a well-established SharePoint background extending back to previous SharePoint on-prem days. The responsibility of these roles typically includes the design and deployment of both site and tenant-level information architecture to support business processes. This usually extends into leveraging the site/tenant-level term store and configuring search.
A key responsibility for this role is involvement in the digitization of manual, legacy, or inefficient business processes when SharePoint is determined to be the appropriate platform to house it. This is where developers (both citizen and professional) enter the picture and have the opportunity to really make SharePoint “shine”.
Another key responsibility of this role group is to decide whether automation will be used for provisioning Microsoft Teams, Microsoft 365 Groups, or standalone SharePoint sites. This is an important decision to make for several reasons: consistency, manageability, support, and you guessed it… compliance.
This group covers a wide range of roles within; however most people in this group are usually concerned about the proliferation of SharePoint sites in their environment… typically something they historically had more control over in the SharePoint on-prem days.
Group 2… Records Management roles
This group is responsible for both information governance and records management for your organization and extends beyond what you may have stored inside a Microsoft 365 tenant. Like the SharePoint group, roles in this group are also from a well-established knowledge domain; however, the new “wrinkle” being added to this group’s formerly paper-based and dare I say simpler, digital world is the management of records inside the modern, digital workplace of Microsoft 365.
This group has a big job and responsibility on their hands. I’m witnessing a modernization of this knowledge domain and some new practices from both regulators’ and records managers’ perspectives.
Group 3… IT Administration roles
These administrative roles vary widely across organizations, but collectively are responsible for tenant-level policy configuration and enforcement, identity management, (some) storage management, assigning permissions, and any back-end technical configuration required to meet an organization’s needs. For this reason, the depth and breadth of tasks this group does will vary depending on an organization’s size, industry, culture, region, and team layout.
This group has gone through significant change from the on-premises days and some new Microsoft 365 admin roles have emerged as a result.
The Touchpoints
While operationalizing the IG/RM program inside an organization, each of the above groups typically have touchpoints with each other at certain times.
Here are some key tips for each of the touchpoints from an IG/RM implementation perspective:
Records Management and SharePoint Role Groups
- Tip 1: Understand Site/Information Architecture touch points with IG/RM
- Tip 2: Include IG/RM roles during the Digitization/Modernization of business processes
Records Management and IT Administration Role Groups
- Tip 3: IT Administrators need to “ramp up” their compliance knowledge
- Tip 4: It helps for IG/RM teams to have a “compliance understanding” of Microsoft 365 architecture
Each of the above 4 “tips” is a discussion on its own and is what I spend a good part of my consulting practice providing to customers.
Reach out to know more!
Thanks for reading.
-JCK
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