Strategy and action planning
Abstract:
Discusses why and how to develop a records management strategy and an action plan, including linking records management to the wider museum strategy, and how to plan for required staff, equipment, space and supplies resources.
Introduction
Records management should link to strategic and action planning at a corporate or museum-wide level. This allows for implementing the records management programme according to a structured plan with the cooperation of senior management and colleagues.
Although the focus of this book is records management, this chapter includes some planning for the resources needed to prepare records for the archival end of their life cycle, as some records managers may be charged with this task. However, most of the resource planning focuses on what is needed for active and inactive records.
Why to plan
Museums are busy organisations with many deadline-critical activities such as exhibitions, capital (building) projects and fundraising. Records management must not only be recognised as an essential function to save museum resources, but also built into the way the museum develops its own culture. To this end, most museums have a ‘forward’ or strategic plan that follows a set of strategic objectives which allow them to address areas of weakness, build on areas of strength, identify priorities and relevant resources and adapt to changing customer or patron bases. Records management activities should be integrated into this overall planning process.
The point of the museum’s forward or strategic plan is not just to document its management activities, but also to follow a consistent process by which to achieve medium- and long-term goals. Many forward plans follow a three- to five-year cycle and are often updated annually.
Although records management is an ongoing core function of the museum, its initial phases are often conceived of – and funded – as a project. Sometimes a project is the precursor to making a business case for ongoing support of a full-fledged records management programme. The risk is that museum staff may assume that records management will be completed at the end of the project, when in fact the main goal is to establish it as a core function of the museum. It should be made clear from the beginning that records management is never a ‘one-off’ activity, and that in order to embed it as a core function it will need ongoing support and ownership.
Detailed action planning allows for determining an overall strategy to progress records management as part of the larger corporate strategic planning process. It should balance what the museum wants to achieve with a realistic sense of what is achievable in the available timeframe known from the outset. Explore whether it is best to frame the start-up as a project or an ongoing programme; this will depend on the institutional culture of the museum.
How to plan
The key to making these activities into a coherent programme lies in the information collected through the records survey or assessment detailed in Chapter 5. The information acquired about the strengths and weaknesses in records keeping at the museum contains the raw data needed to prioritise the next steps: what issues need to be addressed in order to define goals and achieve them.
List these issues, along with the solutions (next steps) and the people responsible for addressing them in an action plan that details the timeframe within which they need to be addressed. Merely listing the issues like this also helps to refine priorities. (See Chapter 8 for links to a sample action plan and strategy documents.)
The plan should be a working document to help set objectives and prioritise tasks, and will change over time. It is a tool to link records management objectives with organisational priorities and keep the implementation manageable.1 Once priorities are defined, it is worth taking another look at the scale of the programme. Be realistic. How long will it take to get a records management programme fully up and running?2
A plan should link overall programme objectives (which in turn may support the museum’s strategic objectives) to goals that are achieved by measurable actions within specific timeframes. The programme objectives may have more than one goal, and those goals may require more than one action or task to achieve the overall objective.
It is helpful for the stated timeframes to relate to the specific actions rather than the objectives, but read as a whole the document will provide a picture of what needs to happen over the medium to long term in order to put good records management into practice in the museum.
Figure 6.1 shows a strategic plan template3 for a sample objective.
How to make the plan into a strategy
The combination of defining goals to achieve within a reasonable timeframe and agreeing the steps to achieving them comprises the strategy. A records management strategy should take into account any concurrent museum-wide or very large initiatives, so as to plan how resources can be deployed effectively and support those initiatives if possible for a ‘win-win’ situation.
Keep in mind any other initiatives to ensure that the strategy will complement larger organisation-wide goals. The strategy should also inform the museum’s main strategic or forward plan. A mandate for records management should ensure a ‘seat at the table’; a means to input to the larger planning process. This in turn should provide some control over the pace of establishing records management within the constraints of the museum’s resources and forward plan.
It is easy to feel overwhelmed by the scale of records management issues when previous record-keeping practices have been ad hoc. The planning process should provide practical tools to stave off this situation and help to address the issues in a systematic way.
Planning for required resources
The initial investment the museum makes in records management can be relatively resource heavy, although many museums already have what is needed: basic supplies, any non-office records storage space, physical storage equipment (racking), staff (even one person) and funds for all these items. If money is already being spent on records management activities, it is important that a specific budget (or budgets) is identified as such – or that records management becomes a line item in administrative budgets. In Chapter 3 we made clear that set-up costs can be calculated ahead of time as part of the business case, and are often outweighed by savings. Below is an outline of suggested resources needed to begin and maintain a programme so as to help cost and budget them.
Storage space for paper and electronic records
Records storage space is critical to records management. No matter how much backlog is disposed of, staff will still need to refer to active records; some inactive records need to be kept for legal or regulatory reasons; and some records will have archival value and need to be kept permanently. Whether these records are in paper or electronic formats, you will need to address how they are stored. (See also Chapter 7, where criteria for these decisions are scoped in more detail.)
The space resources available to you may determine the type of records management programme you establish, even if this changes over time as more resources become available.
Physical custody of records
As previously mentioned, one of the most useful ‘quick wins’ of a records management programme is to take physical custody of inactive or ‘semi-current’ paper records identified in the survey – this means freeing up office space by removing inactive records to a records store (often part of a museum archive store).
Intellectual custody of records
If there is not the space to take custody of paper records, the programme can simply focus on the ‘intellectual’ side of records management via the development and implemenation of file plans and retention schedules, and provision of advice on best practice (addressed in the next chapter).
Hybrid physical and intellectual custody of records
If there is limited records storage space available, consider offering a hybrid programme in which some departments physically manage their own inactive and archival records (often sensible for teams like finance where clear retention periods are mandated by law and where the majority are eventually disposed of), and other departments deposit their inactive and archival records (especially sensible for records that need a review date to look at whether they have long-term or permanent value, such as certain curatorial and exhibition records).
Ensure that any records store space is appropriate. Historically, museums have had a tendency to keep paper records in the basement or the attic, both of which are vulnerable to flooding/leaks, pests and other environmental damage. Active and inactive paper records need to be stored in an area that is at low risk from flood and fire. Servers containing electronic records must be in a climate-controlled environment at a consistent temperature; resources for this may be problematic for smaller museums. Long-term requirements for archival records in electronic formats are addressed in Chapter 7.
Archive records on paper should be stored in a controlled environment similar to the way objects are stored, according to British Standard 5454 which sets out temperature and humidity ranges for document storage, along with shelving schemes and document container specifications (see Chapter 8 for records storage standards and procedures). Further guidance on the storage of archival records is provided by TNA’s Advisory Service.
Ad hoc storage decisions for records often occur when an exhibition space becomes available or a major capital project forces the records manager’s hand – it is better to plan ahead even if space is not immediately available.
Remember that on-site space is essential to prepare records for off-site storage, so a long worktable for paper records preparation and a computer workstation are minimum requirements, along with a limited amount of racking for boxes. If the museum uses ‘hot-desks’, ensure there is access to a worktable and a suitable trolley for transporting boxes of paper records.
The increasing cost-effectiveness of computer memory is a double-edged sword of sorts – do invest in more memory to speed up systems and ensure that the records needed for the long term are not lost to clear-ups, but be aware that good records management does not adhere to the ‘memory is cheap, let’s keep everything’ ethos. Records identified for disposal or archives in your retention schedule should not be segregated by format. Keep or dispose of records according to their content, not their media. Remember that when the FOIA applies to the museum, it covers all formats of records equally, so the museum is obligated to apply its records schedule to electronic records. Unless the schedule specifies that the museum will ‘keep everything’ then it violates the FOIA by doing so for electronic records. Simply adding more memory to servers is a quick fix, not a quick win, and will merely cause records management problems in the near future.
Planning for staffing needs
All records managers or museum staff who have designated responsibility for records management rely on the assistance of their colleagues. Records management is everyone’s responsibility. However, depending on the size and complexity of the museum, and whether records management is the whole or part of one job description, it may be wise to formalise additional staff help.
Sometimes this help is just half an hour to an hour spent talking with each selected colleague during the records survey – this initial investment may help to avoid drains on staff time to help identify records later on.
As agreed in the records management policy discussed in Chapter 4, it is advisable to add records management tasks to performance management reviews of targeted key staff – often department administrators or personal assistants – and at a broad level to senior management job descriptions. Consider establishing records management ‘liaison’ staff, ‘lead users’ or a working group/committee made up of appropriate staff, and take this forward under the remit of the action plan.
Refer to the records management policy and work with human resources or personnel officer/s to ensure that the responsibilities it defines are reflected in performance management reviews. This keeps records management at the forefront of staff consciousness across the museum and delegates responsibility in a way that makes records management work for everyone.
Take into account what tasks can be achieved without extra assistance; will you need help just to get started? Determine the extent of staff help available and what can be realistically requested of colleagues. Know if staff help will be paid or unpaid. Map out how much time is needed from colleagues, e.g. flag some time at senior management meetings, or approach colleagues in facilities ahead of time about any anticipated expertise needed from that depatrment in terms of space/storage planning and fitting out.
Planning for supplies and equipment
The supplies and equipment needed will depend on the type of records management programme offered. Basic supplies consist of boxes to pack records in, and pencils to label boxes and folders where necessary. Boxes can be bought from the museum’s usual stationer or office supply vendor.
It is important to address whether:
records storage boxes are of a standard size so they will fit on shelving and be comfortable to lift/move; it is easy to overpack outsized boxes only to find they are too heavy to lift without risk to staff health and safety
there is adequate racking or pallets for storage of records boxes
there is a ready supply of basics like pencils and folders
each department will supply what is required and what will be supplied centrally – how will this impact on budgets?
there is sufficient server space to deal with certain electronic records (such as high-resolution images) over time.
To address the preservation needs of archival records, make a list of supplies and equipment and find out which vendors provide the specialist materials needed. Confer with the conservation department or colleagues on a conservation listserv to discover any available preferred rates. A supplies checklist template with space to fill in costs and add items is given in Appendix 11.
1.See www.museuminfo-records.org.uk/toolkits/RecordsManagement.pdf (accessed: 31 December 2010).
2.It is unlikely that it will take less than three years, although it is possible to achieve many useful ‘quick wins’ during this time, and museums with a very small staff may find that one year is feasible.
3.A fuller sample action plan is available at www.museuminfo-records.org.uk/docs/sample_implementation_plan.doc (accessed: 31 December 2010).