Future-proofing UK regulator with a strong and sustainable information strategy
Introduction
What do you do when your organisation feels to be falling behind in all aspects of information governance? This was a problem for one of our clients – a UK regulator responsible for assessing the performance of government service providers.
The regulator had undergone significant organisational change over a short period of time and as a result was in a state of shock. New processes and systems had been introduced and failed; large numbers of staff had left the organisation, and they had gone through three CEOs in the space of a year. It’s difficult to govern or manage anything in this situation and information governance had clearly suffered.
Business drivers
Our client was aware of the urgency with which they needed to address information governance but did not know where to start because absolutely everything felt like a high priority. The issues with information governance were not only affecting their ability to comply, but also the overall effectiveness of their core activities. The client had tried several different approaches to improve information governance – but was beginning to feel like nothing was sticking.
Key requirements
With so many issues which needed to be addressed, the client also needed to define a clear set of priorities, as well as an assessment of what resources might be required to achieve their goals.
They recognised the need for an independent, expert view on the approaches they had undertaken so far and the effectiveness of these to ultimately improve information governance and implement a robust information strategy moving forward.
The Metataxis approach
As information strategy experts, Metataxis was engaged by the client to help them define and create a comprehensive, clear and compliant information management strategy.
From the outset, it was clear that our client needed a long-term solution to make improvements over time. Many of the approaches and solutions that our client had developed to date were tactical and short term in nature. This meant that our client was often caught in a cycle of making reactive decisions rather than thinking about a longer-term strategy.
To develop an information strategy for a client in a state of acute need for intervention, we initially carried out a gap analysis, considering which elements of the existing information management function were fit for purpose and supported the achievement of their long-term goals, and crucially – which were not.
However, developing an information strategy does not always mean throwing away all that has gone before. It is about incorporating those elements that already work into the overall mission. This meant that we focussed more on identifying gaps in the information governance structure and providing recommendations for improvement, giving our client endorsement of the initiatives they had already implemented which worked well.
Metataxis went on to develop an information strategy which provided a roadmap of activities over a period of three years. The information strategy considered the resources available and what was achievable, recommending a maturity model approach to making incremental improvements over time. Managing expectations about rates of change and return on investment was critical to the success of the strategy.
Setting priorities was a key task to ensure an achievable information strategy. This was something our client really struggled with, as there were so many critical issues demanding their attention. Metataxis’ years of experience in developing and delivering information strategies was essential to informing the logical order of actions as well as setting priorities based on risk.
Metataxis delivered an information strategy that really helped the organisation to clarify and understand what the root causes of their information governance issues were, and most importantly provided guidance on how to fix them. With a clear view of the problems – despite not being able to resolve them all at once – gave our client much reassurance that their information governance issues could be addressed.
Business benefits
Our client emerged with a clear view of the size and scale of remediation work that was required to improve their information governance. The gap analysis and information strategy gave our client a quantifiable view of their information governance needs so they could begin to realistically discuss resource, structure and budget.
Armed with a clear strategy in place, based on sound information governance principles, ensured that the organisation was responding to information governance challenges in a consistent and informed manner.
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