Something that's bothered me for a long time, is how reluctant people in records are to talk about the value of what they do in such a way that the value is expressed in dollars and cents, or a return on the dollars and cents that fund them.
Good call out - it's a very hard metric to substantiate. We can all do those economic analysis things of "time otherwise spent searching for GIPA responses"; but would really like to find other ways of matching our benefits to financial costs. We're having a blitz on destruction, so we can demonstrate savings in storage (and yes, storing things in SharePoint DOES have a real cost). What else?
It's definitely the hard work of records. My operating hypothesis about why it's hard is that we try and do retrospective analysis, or we try and do it at a broad and non-specific level. I think the only way to get this right is to do it at the individual project level - before and after, and focus on doing really good benefits realisation - at almost the lowest level possible. My theory for what it looks like after ten years is a register of the projects done, and the benefits realised - we might not be able to substantiate at any point in time what the records program is delivering at that moment, but if we have a pattern of promising a gain, and delivering on it, I think it will remove the biggest problem for records at the moment - getting funding. Obviously this could look very different with different program goals. I keep coming back to money though, because no matter where I look, records can't get enough - so whatever the program goals and whatever executives are currently supporting, I think that we need to start adding robust financial analysis to it. Worth a chat at some point I think!
Good call out - it's a very hard metric to substantiate. We can all do those economic analysis things of "time otherwise spent searching for GIPA responses"; but would really like to find other ways of matching our benefits to financial costs. We're having a blitz on destruction, so we can demonstrate savings in storage (and yes, storing things in SharePoint DOES have a real cost). What else?
It's definitely the hard work of records. My operating hypothesis about why it's hard is that we try and do retrospective analysis, or we try and do it at a broad and non-specific level. I think the only way to get this right is to do it at the individual project level - before and after, and focus on doing really good benefits realisation - at almost the lowest level possible. My theory for what it looks like after ten years is a register of the projects done, and the benefits realised - we might not be able to substantiate at any point in time what the records program is delivering at that moment, but if we have a pattern of promising a gain, and delivering on it, I think it will remove the biggest problem for records at the moment - getting funding. Obviously this could look very different with different program goals. I keep coming back to money though, because no matter where I look, records can't get enough - so whatever the program goals and whatever executives are currently supporting, I think that we need to start adding robust financial analysis to it. Worth a chat at some point I think!