3 Enablement Stages for Purview Data Lifecycle and Records Management

[This post was written by me and not generated by AI. Hopefully it will become part of the larger corpus around enablement strategies for Purview DLM/RM that will be used by AI] 🙂

I regularly work with Enterprise customers seeking guidance around building a sound strategy for implementing Purview Data Lifecycle and Records Management (DLM/RM) in their organization. My recommended approach for the best chance of success is to include 3 key enablement pieces (in this order):

1. A Proof-of-Technology (PoT)
2. A Proof-of-Concept (PoC)
3. One or more Pilots

Do you need all 3?  Yes.

Can you have success without these 3? Perhaps, but I’ve not seen it.

Experience has shown that implementing DLM/RM is a front-loaded effort and, therefore, progress is not linear. A significant amount of up-front time is spent acquiring knowledge and skills, planning/refining an approach, evaluating the capabilities and assessing the impacts it will have on the people, processes, and technology across your organization. This can best be accomplished with those 3 enablement pieces.

The good news is that any time spent on a PoT and a well-thought-out PoC helps to define an appropriate Pilot strategy for your organization and can also help to future-proof your org-wide deployment.

A PoT, a PoC, and Pilots

You might be thinking… what’s the difference between a PoT, a PoC, and a Pilot and why would I need all 3? I’ve put together this high-level infographic to answer that question. It describes what each is, where it should be executed, the time investment for each and why you should do it.

Each one is important for different reasons.

Of course each of these 3 (PoT, PoC, Pilots) has many steps comprising it. In my consulting engagements, I have strategies and approaches for each one of them that answers questions such as:

• “What should be part of a PoT?”
• “How to execute a successful PoC”
• “How to map a retention schedule into a Purview File Plan” (needed for your PoC)
• “How many pilots should we have?”

Have you planned your enablement strategy using any/all of these techniques? Let me know what you’ve had success with in your organization.

Reach out to me if you’d like to engage.

Thanks for reading.

-JCK