Information management

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Information management (IM) is the appropriate and optimized capture, storage, retrieval, and use of information. It may be personal information management or organizational. Information management for organizations concerns a cycle of organizational activity: the acquisition of information from one or more sources, the custodianship and the distribution of that information to those who need it, and its ultimate disposal through archiving or deletion and extraction.

Contents

This cycle of information organisation involves a variety of stakeholders, including those who are responsible for assuring the quality, accessibility and utility of acquired information; those who are responsible for its safe storage and disposal; and those who need it for decision making. Stakeholders might have rights to originate, change, distribute or delete information according to organisational information management policies.

Information management embraces all the generic concepts of management, including the planning, organizing, structuring, processing, controlling, evaluation and reporting of information activities, all of which is needed in order to meet the needs of those with organisational roles or functions that depend on information. These generic concepts allow the information to be presented to the audience or the correct group of people. After individuals are able to put that information to use, it then gains more value.

Information management is closely related to, and overlaps with, the management of data, systems, technology, processes and – where the availability of information is critical to organisational success – strategy. This broad view of the realm of information management contrasts with the earlier, more traditional view, that the life cycle of managing information is an operational matter that requires specific procedures, organisational capabilities and standards that deal with information as a product or a service.

History

Emergent ideas out of data management

In the 1970s, the management of information largely concerned matters closer to what would now be called data management: punched cards, magnetic tapes and other record-keeping media, involving a life cycle of such formats requiring origination, distribution, backup, maintenance and disposal. At this time the huge potential of information technology began to be recognised: for example a single chip storing a whole book, or electronic mail moving messages instantly around the world, remarkable ideas at the time. [1] With the proliferation of information technology and the extending reach of information systems in the 1980s and 1990s, [2] information management took on a new form. Progressive businesses such as BP transformed the vocabulary of what was then "IT management", so that "systems analysts" became "business analysts", "monopoly supply" became a mixture of "insourcing" and "outsourcing", and the large IT function was transformed into "lean teams" that began to allow some agility in the processes that harness information for business benefit. [3] The scope of senior management interest in information at BP extended from the creation of value through improved business processes, based upon the effective management of information, permitting the implementation of appropriate information systems (or "applications") that were operated on IT infrastructure that was outsourced. [3] In this way, information management was no longer a simple job that could be performed by anyone who had nothing else to do, it became highly strategic and a matter for senior management attention. An understanding of the technologies involved, an ability to manage information systems projects and business change well, and a willingness to align technology and business strategies all became necessary. [4]

Positioning information management in the bigger picture

In the transitional period leading up to the strategic view of information management, Venkatraman, a strong advocate of this transition and transformation, [5] proffered a simple arrangement of ideas that succinctly brought together the management of data, information, and knowledge (see the figure) argued that:

This simple model summarises a presentation by Venkatraman in 1996, as reported by Ward and Peppard (2002, page 207). DIKAR model.jpg
This simple model summarises a presentation by Venkatraman in 1996, as reported by Ward and Peppard (2002, page 207).

This is often referred to as the DIKAR model: Data, Information, Knowledge, Action and Result, [6] it gives a strong clue as to the layers involved in aligning technology and organisational strategies, and it can be seen as a pivotal moment in changing attitudes to information management. The recognition that information management is an investment that must deliver meaningful results is important to all modern organisations that depend on information and good decision-making for their success. [7]

Theoretical background

Behavioural and organisational theories

It is commonly believed that good information management is crucial to the smooth working of organisations, and although there is no commonly accepted theory of information management per se, behavioural and organisational theories help. Following the behavioural science theory of management, mainly developed at Carnegie Mellon University and prominently supported by March and Simon, [8] most of what goes on in modern organizations is actually information handling and decision making. One crucial factor in information handling and decision making is an individual's ability to process information and to make decisions under limitations that might derive from the context: a person's age, the situational complexity, or a lack of requisite quality in the information that is at hand – all of which is exacerbated by the rapid advance of technology and the new kinds of system that it enables, especially as the social web emerges as a phenomenon that business cannot ignore. And yet, well before there was any general recognition of the importance of information management in organisations, March and Simon [8] argued that organizations have to be considered as cooperative systems, with a high level of information processing and a vast need for decision making at various levels. Instead of using the model of the "economic man", as advocated in classical theory [9] they proposed "administrative man" as an alternative, based on their argumentation about the cognitive limits of rationality. Additionally they proposed the notion of satisficing, which entails searching through the available alternatives until an acceptability threshold is met - another idea that still has currency. [10]

Economic theory

In addition to the organisational factors mentioned by March and Simon, there are other issues that stem from economic and environmental dynamics. There is the cost of collecting and evaluating the information needed to take a decision, including the time and effort required. [11] The transaction cost associated with information processes can be high. In particular, established organizational rules and procedures can prevent the taking of the most appropriate decision, leading to sub-optimum outcomes. [12] [13] This is an issue that has been presented as a major problem with bureaucratic organizations that lose the economies of strategic change because of entrenched attitudes. [14]

Strategic information management

Background

According to the Carnegie Mellon School an organization's ability to process information is at the core of organizational and managerial competency, and an organization's strategies must be designed to improve information processing capability [15] and as information systems that provide that capability became formalised and automated, competencies were severely tested at many levels. [16] It was recognised that organisations needed to be able to learn and adapt in ways that were never so evident before [17] and academics began to organise and publish definitive works concerning the strategic management of information, and information systems. [4] [18] Concurrently, the ideas of business process management [19] and knowledge management [20] although much of the optimistic early thinking about business process redesign has since been discredited in the information management literature. [21] In the strategic studies field, it is considered of the highest priority the understanding of the information environment, conceived as the aggregate of individuals, organizations, and systems that collect, process, disseminate, or act on information. This environment consists of three interrelated dimensions which continuously interact with individuals, organizations, and systems. These dimensions are the physical, informational, and cognitive. [22]

Aligning technology and business strategy with information management

Venkatraman has provided a simple view of the requisite capabilities of an organisation that wants to manage information well – the DIKAR model (see above). He also worked with others to understand how technology and business strategies could be appropriately aligned in order to identify specific capabilities that are needed. [23] This work was paralleled by other writers in the world of consulting, [24] practice, [25] and academia. [26]

A contemporary portfolio model for information

Bytheway has collected and organised basic tools and techniques for information management in a single volume. [7] At the heart of his view of information management is a portfolio model that takes account of the surging interest in external sources of information and the need to organise un-structured information external so as to make it useful (see the figure).

This portfolio model organizes issues of internal and external sourcing and management of information, that may be either structured or unstructured. An Information Portfolio.jpg
This portfolio model organizes issues of internal and external sourcing and management of information, that may be either structured or unstructured.

Such an information portfolio as this shows how information can be gathered and usefully organised, in four stages:

Stage 1: Taking advantage of public information: recognise and adopt well-structured external schemes of reference data, such as post codes, weather data, GPS positioning data and travel timetables, exemplified in the personal computing press. [27]

Stage 2: Tagging the noise on the World Wide Web: use existing schemes such as post codes and GPS data or more typically by adding “tags”, or construct a formal ontology that provides structure. Shirky provides an overview of these two approaches. [28]

Stage 3: Sifting and analysing: in the wider world the generalised ontologies that are under development extend to hundreds of entities and hundreds of relations between them and provide the means to elicit meaning from large volumes of data. Structured data in databases works best when that structure reflects a higher-level information model – an ontology, or an entity-relationship model. [29]

Stage 4: Structuring and archiving: with the large volume of data available from sources such as the social web and from the miniature telemetry systems used in personal health management, new ways to archive and then trawl data for meaningful information. Map-reduce methods, originating from functional programming, are a more recent way of eliciting information from large archival datasets that is becoming interesting to regular businesses that have very large data resources to work with, but it requires advanced multi-processor resources. [30]

Competencies to manage information well

In 2004, the management system "Information Management Body of Knowledge" was first published on the World Wide Web [31] and set out to show that the required management competencies to derive real benefits from an investment in information are complex and multi-layered. The framework model that is the basis for understanding competencies comprises six "knowledge" areas and four "process" areas:

This framework is the basis of organising the "Information Management Body of Knowledge" first made available in 2004. This version is adapted by the addition of "Business information" in 2014. IMBOK Framework.jpg
This framework is the basis of organising the "Information Management Body of Knowledge" first made available in 2004. This version is adapted by the addition of "Business information" in 2014.
The information management knowledge areas

The IMBOK is based on the argument that there are six areas of required management competency, two of which ("business process management" and "business information management") are very closely related. [32]

The information management processes

Even with full capability and competency within the six knowledge areas, it is argued that things can still go wrong. The problem lies in the migration of ideas and information management value from one area of competency to another. Summarising what Bytheway explains in some detail (and supported by selected secondary references): [37]

Summary

There are always many ways to see a business, and the information management viewpoint is only one way. Other areas of business activity will also contribute to strategy – it is not only good information management that moves a business forwards. Corporate governance, human resource management, product development and marketing will all have an important role to play in strategic ways, and we must not see one domain of activity alone as the sole source of strategic success. On the other hand, corporate governance, human resource management, product development and marketing are all dependent on effective information management, and so in the final analysis our competency to manage information well, on the broad basis that is offered here, can be said to be predominant.

Operationalising information management

Managing requisite change

Organizations are often confronted with many information management challenges and issues at the operational level, especially when organisational change is engendered. The novelty of new systems architectures and a lack of experience with new styles of information management requires a level of organisational change management that is notoriously difficult to deliver. As a result of a general organisational reluctance to change, to enable new forms of information management, there might be (for example): a shortfall in the requisite resources, a failure to acknowledge new classes of information and the new procedures that use them, a lack of support from senior management leading to a loss of strategic vision, and even political manoeuvring that undermines the operation of the whole organisation. [41] However, the implementation of new forms of information management should normally lead to operational benefits.

Galbraith's early work

In early work, taking an information processing view of organisation design, Jay Galbraith has identified five tactical areas to increase information processing capacity and reduce the need for information processing. [42]

Matrix organisation

The lateral relations concept leads to an organizational form that is different from the simple hierarchy, the "matrix organization". This brings together the vertical (hierarchical) view of an organisation and the horizontal (product or project) view of the work that it does visible to the outside world. The creation of a matrix organization is one management response to a persistent fluidity of external demand, avoiding multifarious and spurious responses to episodic demands that tend to be dealt with individually.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Knowledge management</span> Process of creating, sharing, using and managing the knowledge and information of an organization

Knowledge management (KM) is the collection of methods relating to creating, sharing, using and managing the knowledge and information of an organization. It refers to a multidisciplinary approach to achieve organizational objectives by making the best use of knowledge.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Strategic management</span> Planning for a companys responses to external issues

In the field of management, strategic management involves the formulation and implementation of the major goals and initiatives taken by an organization's managers on behalf of stakeholders, based on consideration of resources and an assessment of the internal and external environments in which the organization operates. Strategic management provides overall direction to an enterprise and involves specifying the organization's objectives, developing policies and plans to achieve those objectives, and then allocating resources to implement the plans. Academics and practicing managers have developed numerous models and frameworks to assist in strategic decision-making in the context of complex environments and competitive dynamics. Strategic management is not static in nature; the models can include a feedback loop to monitor execution and to inform the next round of planning.

In business, a competitive advantage is an attribute that allows an organization to outperform its competitors.

A core competency is a concept in management theory introduced by C. K. Prahalad and Gary Hamel. It can be defined as "a harmonized combination of multiple resources and skills that distinguish a firm in the marketplace" and therefore are the foundation of companies' competitiveness.

Information technology (IT)governance is a subset discipline of corporate governance, focused on information technology (IT) and its performance and risk management. The interest in IT governance is due to the ongoing need within organizations to focus value creation efforts on an organization's strategic objectives and to better manage the performance of those responsible for creating this value in the best interest of all stakeholders. It has evolved from The Principles of Scientific Management, Total Quality Management and ISO 9001 Quality Management System.

Process-based management is a management approach that views a business as a collection of processes, managed to achieve a desired result. Processes are managed and improved by the organisation for the purpose of achieving its vision, mission and core values. A clear correlation between processes and vision supports the company in planning strategies, structuring business and using sufficient resources to achieve long-term success.

A business case captures the reasoning for initiating a project or task. Many projects, but not all, are initiated by using a business case. It is often presented in a well-structured written document, but may also come in the form of a short verbal agreement or presentation. The logic of the business case is that, whenever resources such as money or effort are consumed, they should be in support of a specific business need. An example could be that a software upgrade might improve system performance, but the "business case" is that better performance would improve customer satisfaction, require less task processing time, or reduce system maintenance costs. A compelling business case adequately captures both the quantifiable and non-quantifiable characteristics of a proposed project. According to the Project Management Institute, a business case is a "value proposition for a proposed project that may include financial and nonfinancial benefit."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Business process re-engineering</span> Business management strategy

Business process re-engineering (BPR) is a business management strategy originally pioneered in the early 1990s, focusing on the analysis and design of workflows and business processes within an organization. BPR aims to help organizations fundamentally rethink how they do their work in order to improve customer service, cut operational costs, and become world-class competitors.

Business analysis is a professional discipline focused on identifying business needs and determining solutions to business problems. Solutions may include a software-systems development component, process improvements, or organizational changes, and may involve extensive analysis, strategic planning and policy development. A person dedicated to carrying out these tasks within an organization is called a business analyst or BA.

Technology strategy is the overall plan which consists of objectives, principles and tactics relating to use of technologies within a particular organization. Such strategies primarily focus on the technologies themselves and in some cases the people who directly manage those technologies. The strategy can be implied from the organization's behaviors towards technology decisions, and may be written down in a document. The strategy includes the formal vision that guides the acquisition, allocation, and management of IT resources so it can help fulfill the organizational objectives.

The resource-based view (RBV), often referred to as the "resource-based view of the firm", is a managerial framework used to determine the strategic resources a firm can exploit to achieve sustainable competitive advantage.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to business management:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Enterprise modelling</span>

Enterprise modelling is the abstract representation, description and definition of the structure, processes, information and resources of an identifiable business, government body, or other large organization.

Business–IT alignment is a process in which an organization integrates and utilizes information technology (IT) to achieve business objectives. It is the ability of IT to produce business value which means the process of establishing an environment where both IT and business professionals are capable of working together in order to achieve common goals in any specific area of work.

Talent management (TM) is the anticipation of required human capital for an organization and the planning to meet those needs. The field has been growing in significance and gaining interest among practitioners as well as in the scholarly debate over the past 10 years as of 2020, particularly after McKinsey's 1997 research and the 2001 book on The War for Talent. Although much of the previous research focused on private companies and organizations, TM is now also found in public organizations.

A Business Intelligence Competency Center (BICC) is a cross-functional organizational team with defined tasks, roles, responsibilities and processes for supporting and promoting the effective use of Business Intelligence (BI) across an organization.

Capability management is the approach to the management of an organization, typically a business organization or firm, based on the "theory of the firm" as a collection of capabilities that may be exercised to earn revenues in the marketplace and compete with other firms in the industry. Capability management seeks to manage the stock of capabilities within the firm to ensure its position in the industry and its ongoing profitability and survival.

Human resource planning is a process that identifies current and future human resources needs for an organization to achieve its goals. Human resource planning should serve as a link between human resource management and the overall strategic plan of an organization. Ageing workers population in most western countries and growing demands for qualified workers in developing economies have underscored the importance of effective human resource planning.

Digital transformation (DT) is the process of adoption and implementation of digital technology by an organization in order to create new or modify existing products, services and operations by the means of translating business processes into a digital format.

The Information Management Body of Knowledge (IMBOK) is a management framework that organizes the concept of information management in the full context of business and organizational strategy, management and operations. It is specifically intended to provide researchers and practicing managers with a tool that makes clear the conjunction of the worlds of information technology and the world at large.

References

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  2. ↑ Venkatraman, N., 1994. IT-enabled business transformation: from automation to business scope redefinition. MIT Sloan Management Review , 35(2), pp.73–87
  3. 1 2 Cross, J. & Earl, M., 1997. Transformation of the IT function at British Petroleum. MIS Quarterly, 21(4), page 403
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  5. ↑ Venkatraman, N., 1994. IT-enabled business transformation: from automation to business scope redefinition. Sloan Management Review, 35(2), pp.73–87.
  6. ↑ Venkatraman, N., 1996. Managing IT resources as a value center, IS Executive Seminar Series, Cranfield School of Management
  7. 1 2 Bytheway, A., 2015. Investing in Information: the Information Management Body of Knowledge, Geneva: Springer
  8. 1 2 March, J.G. & Simon, H.A., 1958. Organizations, Wiley
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  25. ↑ Cross, J., 1995. IT outsourcing : British Petroleum's competitive approach. Harvard Business Review, 73(3), p.94
  26. 1 2 Ward, J. & Daniel, E., 2005. Benefits Management: Delivering Value from IS and IT Investments, Chichester: Wiley
  27. ↑ Ashbrook, D. & Starner, T., 2003. Using GPS to learn significant locations and predict movement across multiple users. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 7(5), pp.275–286
  28. ↑ Shirky, C., 2005. Shirky: Ontology is Overrated -- Categories, Links, and Tags. Clay Shirky's Writings About the Internet. Available at: http://shirky.com/writings/ontology_overrated.html Archived December 20, 2016, at the Wayback Machine [Accessed May 23, 2013]
  29. ↑ Noy, N.F., McGuinness, D.L. & others, 2001. Ontology development 101: A guide to creating your first ontology, Stanford knowledge systems laboratory technical report KSL-01-05 and Stanford medical informatics technical report SMI-2001-0880
  30. ↑ Chu, C. et al., 2007. Map-reduce for machine learning on multicore. Advances in neural information processing systems, 19, p.281
  31. ↑ IMBOK, 2004. The Information Management Body of Knowledge. Available at: http://www.imbok.org [Accessed May 12, 2015]
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  41. ↑ Knights, D. & Murray, F., 1994. Managers Divided, Chichester: John Wiley
  42. ↑ Galbraith, J.R., 1977. Organization design, Addison Wesley
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