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A 10-Step Records Management Business Plan
 

Step 1. Determine who will be responsible and what resources will be needed.

Establish a project liaison team with reps from all sub units to oversee the project. Use the business, it is their records!

Step 2. Identify the records needed to document your office's activities and functions.

Conduct an inventory of the materials in each office/store/safe. Don't forget to include empty offices, cabinets, boxes and
other areas where things may have been "stashed."

Step 3. Establish your procedures (recordkeeping requirements).

Centralised or Decentralised? Critical decision needed at it impacts staffing needs that would be better utilised in business!

Step 4. Match your records to the records schedules.

The next step in the project is to match the records identified in your inventory with a records retention and disposition
schedules

Step 5. Prepare a "file plan."

Now that you know what records you have and what the appropriate records schedules are, you can begin to organise them. For example, the file code for Program Management Files is: XXXXXX

Step 6. Document your recordkeeping requirements and procedures.

Prepare a document, a file plan, which gives details on how, who, when, what.

 

Step 7. Clean out records which are beyond the approved retention periods.

Once you have documented your file plan, you can begin to organize your records

 

Step 8. Organise your records.

Now you can begin to implement your file plan.

 

Step 9. Maintain your records on an ongoing basis.

Once everything is organised, it is important to keep it current and up to date.

 

Step 10.TRAIN, TRAIN, TRAIN
 

The process of HOW and WHEN?

• It is critical that business areas use their own staff to do the identification of their records, as the records belong to the business area! A Consultant can assist and coordinate, but does not have ownership of the records!

• It would appear that ACME INC. may have locked itself into a long-term relationship with a Service Provider and proprietary system. This will influence the decision on whether to proceed with a dedicated ACME INC in-house Electronic Document and Records Management System.

• The 10-step records management plan consists of 43 sub-steps that require agreement on applicability; thus, this, together with the quick fix will determine the timeframe required to execute in full.

• Best guess at this point is a minimum of 5 to 6 months, depending on the size of the business and the thoroughness of the execution