Rate problems, tooling and resources in records management.

In system dynamics, there's a tool called "stock and flow modelling."

The principle is simple.

A stock is an accumulation of something.

A flow is a movement of something - to or from a stock.

Thinking about records challenges as stocks and flows is a useful way to understand where our challenges are, and to conceptualise our ability to solve them.

Our ability to resolve our challenges is directly related to the resources and tooling we have to deal with them.

Work (and problems) is created at a certain rate - that's the "flow" of the work.

The resources we have allow us to do that work - at a certain rate.

The right technology can allow us to increase the rate at which we can do the work.

If the rate at which a problem is being created exceeds the rate at which you can do the work - stock builds up.

And stock generally stays there - and stock can create problems which accumulate over time.

Simple example - lots of us have file servers full of unclassified content.

That content accumulated (and likely keeps accumulating) because the rate at which we can classify it and move it was exceeded by the rate at which people would put the content there.

The stock accumulating there also tells us that we have another problem somewhere else - because if you've got a records system, and people are using the file server - you've got a problem.

That problem is also a stock - a stock of people who don't understand what they're supposed to be doing, or aren't doing it for some other reason - the solution to the problem is always to create a flow to a place that's good for you - it might be a flow of people being properly trained - to a stock of trained people.

It's useful to conceptualise our organisations and the work that we do in this way. When we understand the problems we face in terms of their stocks, it's easy to see that our job is all about the flows and how we create them - the options that we have in terms of technology and resourcing, and the possible consequences of letting stocks continue to accumulate.

Questions to ask -

- What stock do you have?

- What rate is it accumulating it at?

- What resources or technology can allow you to deal with it faster than it's accumulating?

- Who cares about the problems?

- What would convince them to fund the technology and resources?