Perhaps a provocative blogpost title, but it likely hits home for a few organizations out there trying to gain traction on their own Information Governance program. Let’s talk about it.
This post shares some observations I’ve made based on my consulting experience with customers in the field who are in the midst of planning, designing, and/or implementing their information governance (IG) and records management(RM) programs in Microsoft 365. Throughout my engagements, I’ve repeatedly observed some common blockers to success. In the most extreme cases, these blockers can jeopardize the success of the overall IG/RM program. In milder cases, these blockers can simply make it challenging to know how to get out of the starting gate.
Blockers come in many disguises… some technical, some operational, and some human.
Although my consulting experience is 100% Microsoft 365, I suspect these blockers could apply to any underlying tech since the non-tech operational and human side of IG/RM are critical factors for success.
Interestingly, my blockers fall into 1 of 2 extreme buckets… things that are lacking and things we have too much of. For those organizations that have addressed these blockers, hats off to you! For the rest of us, there’s likely improvements to be made…
This is not an authoritative list based on statistics, but is based on my “real-world” experience and observations. 🙂
Things that are lacking…
- Lack of Executive/stakeholder support and direction
- Lack of urgency to deliver results/improvements
- Lack of understanding of the value proposition the IG program will provide (why are we doing this?)
- Lack of Information Governance (human) resources
- Lack of knowledge in Microsoft Purview retention
- Lack of governance in Active Directory
- Lack of governance around SharePoint site/Microsoft team/M365 group provisioning
- Lack of collaboration among SharePoint, Exchange, IG/RM specialists, and IT Admins
- Lack of understanding of modern workplace complexities as it relates to IG
- Lack of preparation and training for end-users
Things we have too much of…
- Over-analysis paralysis
- Over-complicated retention schedule(s)
- Large retention schedule(s)
- Over-optimistic about the compliance program timeline
- Over-abundance of content repositories (complex, duplicate content, siloed)
- Over-retaining by email and document hoarders
My job as a consultant is to dig into these things with customers and help clear a path forward. 🙂
Can you relate to any of these? What’s in your org?
Thanks for reading.
-JCK