Data Management Strategies for the CIOWhat are the first few steps for creating an enterprise information management strategy? There seems to be a lot of parts to an EIM initiative. It’s a bit overwhelming.
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Below are some initial steps you can take to launch an EIM strategy and program:
1. Identify the appropriate approvers, resources, participants and other interested stakeholders.
2. Develop an initial EIM strategy and roadmap. As part of that process, assess the business requirements, key issues and opportunities (business and technical) for initiating an EIM program, including organizational impact and informational needs. Identify potential programs and projects that would benefit from an information management initiative and have a higher probability of being successful with one in place. The foundational EIM components of data governance and stewardship, metadata management and information architecture need to be part of the strategy, plus selected other components based on business needs.
3. Staff and assign the initial level of resources required for implementing the foundational EIM functional components.
4. Institute data governance processes in relation to existing business and IT governance and align with existing organizational committees or boards where appropriate.
5. Identify data stewardship roles, responsibilities and assignments, including the development of handbook and training materials. Data stewardship roles should ideally be based on subject areas from an enterprise data model.
6. Define initial information management processes, policies, standards, management mechanisms and procedures, plus the budgets needed for pilot projects.
7. Select and deploy new technologies if needed.
8. Develop education and socialization plans to acclimate employees in pilot areas and help the internal culture to accept an enterprise approach to information management.
9. Execute your EIM roadmap for the selected pilot projects.
10. Define a transition plan, including an implementation and change management roadmap.
11. Identify required adjustments to existing organizational artifacts and processes based on feedback and results from the initial pilot areas.
12. Communicate internally about the EIM strategy and the business value realized in the pilots, as well as the challenges and lessons learned.
This was first published in September 2010