Efficient and Systematic Control, and why we're mostly still running records as a registry office

Knowing some of the people involved in ISO15489, I can't believe that this was never supposed to be efficient and systematic control of registry entries.

That's not record creation.

If we're not getting to the point where someone records the information - as in, takes it out of their head and records it using some kind of persistent method, we're doing it wrong.

The real lesson for this, is just how hard it is for a profession to change.

That ISO definition is from the 2002 standard.

Everyone loves to talk continuum.

We all know that records has changed dramatically.

We have the kinds of volume that we've never had to deal with before.

Quality is awful.

And the clues about how to solve it are in a 20 year old definition from a standard, compliance with which has been mandatory in every single tender, expression of interest, request for information etc. that I can ever remember responding to.

And we're still catching stuff off the end of the conveyor belt, and letting everyone else make decisions about what to create.

So we're still all mostly running registry offices.

They're much more high tech.

But if other people were responsible for (what they probably consider to be) "the efficient and systematic creation..." we're only doing half the job.

Here's the kicker.

Every time you meet a Business Analyst in your organisation,

Every time you login to a business system,

Just remember that it's evidence that IT and the rest of the business know that the only place you can meaningfully control quality and quantity of records is at the point of creation.

Think about the money that was spent on that system - that's evidence of just how highly the quality of the records in it is valued.

Then ask yourself why the organisation isn't coming to us.

Could be that they know we're still running a registry office?

And they know that all the things that make their job easier have to happen at creation - which we don’t seem to want to be involved in?

As to why we’re still running registry offices, I think it’s two reasons - but mostly, change is hard.

We’d also have to take responsibility for it.

To do that, our organisations would have to trust us with the part of the process that most predicts whether they’re going to produce a good outcome.

So they’d have to believe that our theory of value is aligned with theirs.

Then they get to understand our theory of value.

And it’s all about preservation for unknown people in an unknown future.

And it’s baked in to practice, even when we talk about findability etc. all of our classification and sentencing processes are about making sure that unknown people in an unknown future can make sense of things.

So we don’t get a start, because what they want to hear is “make me more successful” and all they can hear and see are things that confuse them.

So they don’t trust us.

They trust the BA, and IT - becasue they know that when they ask for something that helps them, IT give it to them.

They know that when they ask for something, we give them 20 reasons why they have to think about everyone else, and then we build things that are for someone who isn’t them.

So they don’t trust us, in the same way that you don’t trust a train going in the wrong direction to get you where you want to go.

It’s just going in a different direction, so you don’t get on.

So we’re stuck running a registry office.

Who would you trust?