The question the really brave people in records management are asking themselves
What problem are we solving?
Every profession exists to solve a problem.
Disciplines that evolve over time, understand the problem they solve, and the relationship to how they do their work.
The disciplines that fail to evolve are the ones that become focused on tools of their craft as it was at some point in time - rather than the problem they solve.
Records only solve a few problems.
1. Memory is unreliable.
2. Coordinating activity in persistent ways.
The nice thing is that memory isn't getting more reliable, we are getting busier, and our organisations are getting more complex - so persistent ways to coordinate activity are getting more valuable, not less valuable.
Solving these problems is the really important work of records.
At some point, records management and archival science came along because when your reliable memory was on paper there were huge management challenges associated with making sure that was available when people needed it.
Now people have difference challenges.
If we were solving them, our systems would have high rates of utilisation.
Do they?
What does that say about the problem are we solving?
A good approach, "what problem are we trying to solve?" It forms a solid basis for continually improving business processes and identifying something that has evolved into an ineffective solution.
But who is the 'we' trying to solve the problem? RM professionals solve the problems we see (capture, reliability, disposal) with EDRMS/ECM's that make sense to us.
Where we have devolved RM responsibilities to the subject matter expert they are going to find their own solution to the problem (search, access). It may be the same problem for multiple SMEs but they are going to have their own solution that makes sense for them (Google drive, shared drive, desktop) - I see this is as the reason for much of our sprawl. As an RM professional I'd love the SMEs to bring me their problems and let me help them find the solution that works for them - and for me.
But do they know where to find me and do they trust that I can and will help?