Valuing information and records management practices

Practices are only valuable as far as they produce something that our organisation values.

When we make assumptions about what our organisation values, we inevitably engage in practices that devalue our work relative to how it could be valued if we were aiming at the right things.

The solution isn't a complicated one, it's to gain trust so we can have frank and fearless conversations about what the organisation values, and what the hierarchy of value looks like.

Once we understand the hierarchy of value, we can understand how we should rank the problems we can see. When we get it right, we're congruent with the organisation, and we get the funding we need. When we get it wrong, we're at odds with the organisation, and don't get funded - or worse, we get funded at the end of the financial year, and spend money on things the organisation doesn't really value.

If you're in a position where you can't get the funding you need, it's worth considering -

1. Do you know what your organisation values - what it's priorities are?

2. Are your funding requests aligned?

Chances are, that if you're not getting funded, you're asking for things your organisation doesn't value. We all want to do valuable work, the start of being able to do it, is knowing what valuable work is.