The Information Governance Initiative recently released its 2014 report on the state of information governance. The report, subtitled “information Governance Goes to Work” is based on quite a broad research base, and includes data from Canada and the UK as well as the USA. To start with a definition, in the view of the IGI “Information governance is the activities and technologies that organizations employ to maximize the value of their information while minimizing associated risks and costs.” A chart on p13 of the report shows that in total respondents identified 19 different activities under this heading. There are three sections to this 39 page elegantly presented report covering The Concept, The Market and The Work.

A feature of this report is the two-page quick read section at the beginning (other analyst firms take note!) with fifteen highlights from the report. In a brief blog it is not possible to do justice to them all, so I’m just going to focus on those that resonated with my own views.

• Organizations with complex information environments should appoint a Chief Information Governance Officer (CIGO) to balance stakeholder interests from each facet of IG information governance)and develops an operational model for the organization. Currently only 28% of respondents had such a post, a figure much higher than I had anticipated.
• IG is a coordinating function for a long list of information activities. By a wide margin (79 percent) respondents see IG as the highest-level description for all information management activities at their organizations.
• IG should incorporate all the tools needed to better manage information. This includes organizational controls commonly expressed in the form of policies and procedures. It also includes the processes that are driven by these controls and the people who develop, enforce, and follow those processes
• Practitioners are taking on a wide variety of IG projects, right now. On average, SMBs have four IG projects under way, and large organizations have six. A majority of organizations are actively working on updating policies and procedures, migrating unstructured information, and consolidating and cleaning up data. Other popular projects include implementing a new corporate governance framework for IG.

The amount of research data in the report is almost daunting to read through but it will provide invaluable support to anyone wishing to make a case for an acknowledgement by their organisation that information governance (I still prefer information management for reasons I’ll blog about another day) is a core activity that demands senior management attention and support. The report concludes with the view that IG will be pervasive by 2020. In my view if it is not then organisational productivity and innovation is going to take a big hit.

At present the IGI is largely US in membership and in governance and it feels slightly biased towards a general counsel/corporate compliance/records management view of the world. I’m sure this will gradually change as my own experience suggests that in the UK is a rapidly growing interest in information management even if the base of active projects is still low. I’d certainly suggest you take a look at the IGI website and track the availability of future reports. There is also a good analysis of the report by Nick Patience on the Recommind site, from which the report can also be downloaded.

Martin White