Information Management
Information Management
Information Management
General aspects
Access
Architecture
Behavior
Management
Retrieval
Seeking
Society
Knowledge organization
Ontology
Philosophy
Science and technology studies
Taxonomy
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Information management (IM) 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 disposition through archiving or deletion.
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.
Contents
1 History
o 1.1 Emergent ideas out of data management
o 1.2 Positioning information management in the bigger picture
2 Theoretical background
o 2.1 Behavioural and organisational theories
o 2.2 Economic theory
3 Strategic information management
o 3.1 Background
o 3.2 Aligning technology and business strategy with information management
o 3.3 A contemporary portfolio model for information
o 3.4 Competencies to manage information well
o 3.5 Summary
4 Operationalising information management
o 4.1 Managing requisite change
o 4.2 The early work of Galbraith
o 4.3 The matrix organisation
5 See also
6 References
7 External links
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 British
Petroleum 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 British Petroleum 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]
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]
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]
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.
Such an information portfolio as this shows how information can be gathered and usefully
organised, in four stages:
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]
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:
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]
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. It is important to remember that 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.
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.
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]
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
Information Management Body of Knowledge
Records management
Knowledge management
Information technology
Information system
Project management
Business process
Balanced scorecard
Strategic management
Data management
Content management
Master of Information Management
Information Resources Management Journal
Journal of Global Information Management
References
1.