Information discovery

What is information discovery?

To gain value from your information, rather than just accepting ever-increasing management costs and risks, you need to understand the information you have. Information discovery is the first step on this path.

Most information held in systems grows organically, usually without an overarching information strategy, or information architecture to manage this growth. This can result in less oversight as to the information you have, which can in turn lead to duplicated, fragmented, redundant, insecure and unmanageable information. Information discovery can help you identify the information your organisation holds and its characteristics. These are important steps in understanding, managing and then getting the most value from your information.

Why you need information discovery

An information inventory or information audit can show you what information you have, its characteristics, how it is used, and where it is used. This is an essential step towards developing an information architecture, identifying and managing information risk, and supporting good information governance.

Our information discovery services
  • Summary and detailed analysis of the information you hold
  • Visual and tabular outputs describing your information
  • A recommendations report describing information strengths and potential problem areas
  • A strategy and roadmap to remediate or improve your information holdings
Key benefits
  • Understand the ‘as is’ to prepare for the ‘to be’
  • Understand the ‘what,’ ‘where’ and ‘why’ of your information assets
  • Understand user information issues and needs
  • Identify information of value
  • Identify redundant, trivial and out-of-date information
  • Quantify content migration task
  • Develop a foundation for future information architecture
  • Create a foundation for implementing a robust information strategy 

How we do it

The core of the discovery exercise is the development of an information inventory which is created by undertaking a ‘quantitative’ analysis of system metrics and gaining a ‘qualitative’ view of the information that is created and stored. The combination of these two approaches allows us to understand the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ of the organisation’s information assets.

The quantitative analysis consists of summarising, counting and grouping a number of characteristics of the information stored in the shared drives and other systems. This would typically include numbers of documents, a breakdown by file type, number of folders, folder depth, date profiles (create, last access dates etc.) and so on. These metrics reveal underlying information management behaviours and are used to inform the information architecture and solution specification.

The qualitative view is geared to understanding the nature of the information, how staff use it and the value it has to the organisation. The input will be gathered through a series of interviews or workshops with relevant staff to identify information findability and information management requirements. This then informs the development of an information architecture which reflects both the information needs of the users and the nature of the content.

Why us?

Metataxis has helped many organisations undertake information discovery projects as a precursor to larger information management projects or to simply understand the information they hold.

We have a wealth of experience right across the spectrum of information management disciplines meaning we are perfectly positioned not only to audit your content but also to understand what these inventories are telling us about the challenges and opportunities that your information landscape presents.

| Success Story

Information discovery model supports national research establishment

| Success Story

Discovery report underpins global information strategy plans

Gain real value from your information