Introduction

Welcome to my Weblog. This site is dedicated to my thoughts, views and understanding on anything that touches upon records management, archives management as well as information management in Malaysia. I believe in becoming a 'functional and meaningful' information professional, the term I refer to as person who can function in many ways possible for the betterment of this discipline. Interested parties, may reproduce or quote materials published with the condition that they are credited to alwiyunus.blogspot.com Comments must be accompanied by names or pseudonyms. Anonymous postings and those containing profanities and obscenities will be rejected. http://adf.ly/8Y1UN

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Understanding your organization for good record keeping practices

Dear all...

It is crucial to do business process analysis prior to implementing a good record keeping practices or embarking on it. As such, will determine the gaps, the loopholes, for record management implementation.

Image result for business process analysis imagesMany organizations exist because there is a need to be established, for higher objectives and vision not for the purpose of records management establishment. This is based on the nature and direction of the organizations themselves. Records management comes into the picture because organizations needs to proof that they exist, manage its transactions and ensuring accountability and responsibility based on the scope of work and functional requirement of each department. Without which, the high order of vision, mission and objectives of the organization cannot be documented and properly kept for track records or future use.

Image result for business process analysis imagesThus, it is undoubtedly important that records management or record keeping practices must be in place to bear the task of keeping track of the achievement, progress and development of an organization. A sound and proper running of an organization must have proper record keeping practice. It ensures accountability, increasing the organizational image, maintaining trustworthiness of the organization and its staffs thus allowing for organization to grow and flourish further.

To do that, proper record keeping practices must be in place. Hence, a study or business process analysis must be made to understand how organization works before implementing records management properly. At any instance, once an organization is set up, it has in some manner a record keeping practices, however though, it depends on the organization whether they have a professional staff having background in records management to establish records management policy and procedures to be used in daily transactions. Should they have it, then the organization is in its right track. On the other hand, in most cases, many organizations do not have it, and they manage their files as it is (Alwi, 2016).

Image result for business process analysis images

To establish a record management practices, one must be able to understand and collect information as part of business process analysis, the followings:  
  1. How organization works?
  2. Scope and nature of operations.
  3. Demarcation line of authority.
  4. Identify the type and scope of transactions.
  5. Understand the workflow and standard operating procedures of transactions.
  6. Define the relationship between one transaction with another.
  7. Understand the segregation of works, inter-department as well as intra-department department transactions.
  8. Current work practices used.
  9. Work processes and workflows.
  10. List out activities and transactions.
Business process analysis (BPA) is critical in order to investigate business system, taking holistic view of the organization. This includes examining elements of the organizational structures, staff development, current processes and IT system in placed. 

BPA is also meant to evaluate actions to improve the operation of business system, as well documenting the business requirement for system support using appropriate documentation standards.

The core business analyst roles could be defined as an internal consultancy role that has responsibility for investigating business situations, identifying and evaluating options for improving business systems, defining requirement and ensuring effective use of information system (records management) in meeting the need of business.

In this manner, records management is is an integral part of business system which ensures the success and achievement of business operation in term of efficiency and economy of work process and business practices.  To do so, business analyst or records management specialist must be able to focus on understanding the needs of the business/organization as a whole, its strategic direction, and identifying initiatives that will allow a business to meet those strategic goals. It also includes;

It also includes:
  • Creating and maintaining the business architecture
  • Conducting feasibility studies
  • Identifying new business opportunities
  • Scoping and defining new business opportunities
  • Preparing the business case
  • Conducting the initial risk assessment

Ultimately, business analysis/records management specialist wants to achieve the following outcomes:
  • Create solutions
  • Give enough tools for robust record keeping practices
  • Improve efficiency and reduce waste of resources
  • Provide essential documentation, like requirements document, project initiation documents and others.
  • develop file plan structure for document control.


Reference:

Kathleen B Hass, Richard Vander Horst, Kimi Ziemski (2008). From Analyst to Leader: Elevating the Role of the Business Analyst Management Concepts, 2008. ISBN 1-56726-213-9. p94: "As the discipline of business analysis becomes professionalized"

"Business Analysis Body of Knowledge v2.0" (PDF). IIBA. Retrieved 2012-08-26.

Thursday, October 6, 2016

Smart partnership

Dear all...

Image result for collaboration imagesYesterday,  6th of October 2016 marked a historic moment for Faculty of Information Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Puncak Perdana Campus and D.G.KOM Sdn Bhd - a local software provider company specializing in electronic records management system (ERMS), where a memorandum of understanding was signed by both parties to officially launch mutual and win-win cooperation and collaboration in records management activities.

Displaying IMG_5901.JPGThe collaboration and understanding includes cooperation in joint research and development in electronic records management system development, shared and exchanges of expertise, advocacy of records management professional and discipline in Malaysia as well as industrial placement for internship for graduates of records management program of Faculty of Information Management. Through the MOU, the industry (D.G.KOM Sdn Bhd) has agreed in sponsoring and installing ERMS software application known as DGFlo for the faculty, providing 100 user license for DGFlo software, 2 set of servers and Cloud computing capability for storage in the ERMS Smart Lab at Faculty of Information Management at UiTM.
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Such initiative is a hallmark of smart partnership and truly a strategic undertakings between UiTM as the only university in Malaysia that solely provides a degree in records management to students with D.G.KOM Sdn Bhd. an ERMS software developer and provider.  

Why collaboration?

Image result for collaboration imagesThe global ICT trends that dynamically evolves from time to time and the limitation of budget, resources and experts in developing the highly customized ERMS software suitable and fulfilled the functional requirement of ERMS has paved the way for industry-institution collaboration and smart partnership in this case is between UiTM and D.G.KOM Sdn Bhd. Due to the fact that, industry is more dynamic in responding to market demands and full exposure of project implementation has created for such smart partnership and collaboration. UiTM (Faculty of Information Management) on the other hand is the only educational provider in the country for graduates and professionals in records management discipline has made the matching of industry-institution collaboration and reality.

Displaying IMG_5906.JPGThis collaboration will open up for greater cooperation between two organization for the benefit of the nation and society which is in line with the government of Malaysia's aspirations towards electronic service delivery and the e-government flagship in the country. A shared and mutual understanding for research and development, shared expertise, shared efforts towards achieving full flagship of e-government initiative could be achieved.

Displaying IMG_5896.JPGIt is a hope that this collaboration and smart partnership will be beneficial to both parties and dynamically heightened the records and electronic records management discipline in Malaysia.



Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Records is an "Internet of things"....

Dear all...

Image result for internet of things imagesI had had a very lightly and meaningful conversation and discussion with my a good friend of mine today. Rarely did he so energize in giving details and pointing out his argument however this afternoon was a lot different. We talked about a lot of things and issues pertaining to records.

"We have a lot to consume when it comes to information today....more than before did we immense ourselves in abundance of information and data" he said. 'In fact, our intelligence is challenged so much than before to absorb and filter so much information...." he further said.

"I agreed.....it is internet of things" I nodded.

"Yes..it is internet of things....a dynamic nature of constant data creation and data collection 24 hours and 365 days.....we cannot simply ignore it. Just imagine a scientist or so called a bio-marine expert, would like to study the extinction of green turtle in the ocean of today....to understand the life of the green turtle, the scientist must collect enough information which is derived from a lot of data from different channels and sources, up to the extent that the scientist must be able to track the movement on the migration activities of the turtle in order to understand the life of a green turtle. Otherwise, the scientist would not be able to understand the life environment of the green turtle." he explained to me.

"To do so, the scientist must use current technologies to help in collecting the data.....so much so a satellite and GPS based tracking system must be attached to the green turtle as subject of research.....by that, the data movement of the green turtle, location of its hunting or eating supply of its food, location of ocean, the temperature of the ocean, time and space by which it is moving from one place to another could be derived......these data are collected and feed to the database on daily basis...it is huge amount of data and it is kept in the repository of database. Later on, the scientist will need to analyze the data, prepare a report and summary of the data. To do so, the data must be categorized, classified and analyzed accordingly." he further explained to me.

"Hurmm...you are talking about a subject or a particular specied (marine species now in the realm of extinction) and how massive is the data collected throughout a specific time for the purpose of the research so that certain conclusion could be made huh! Later on, based on that findings would be derived from there" I responded to him.

"Yes...you got my point" he responded.

"The data you were mentioning just now is raw data.....then when it is categorized and classified it becomes information, the report as a result of the analysis made is now a record?" I said to him.

"Not only that...the collected data is big data, the analysis made to the data is already a record......where during the years of collecting that, it has created a lot of and massive information which is now becomes a records...the information in its single form is kept in a document whether it is soft copy or printed copy.....finally the records is used and referred to by other scientist for maybe some other research or purposes." He further explained to me.

"So tell me, if you have the data, but there is no analysis, no classification and categorization to the data....do you think normal people like us will understand that data?" he asked me.

"Of course I don't understand because the data needs analysis from the expert in the field....not me. I am not the expert to gauge conclusion from the data. I could only understand the report derived from the data." I said to him.

"Then, the whole things I am saying is about internet of things - massive data collected in one kind of field - in this case is bio marine research on the life of green turtle which is about to extinct to day - and it is closely related to records management." he reiterated again.

"I do understand....." I said calmly.

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Image result for internet of things imagesThe above statements are part of the conversation between me and my friends when somebody mentions that "the trend today is on document management system not records management".

The conversation is the analogy and explanation towards the importance of records in relation to internet of things-big data, dynamic and consistent data derived for various purposes.

to be continued.........