INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

Information management has been a consistent theme across my career, and whilst I have not always had roles that have had dedicated focus on the domain, I apply the principles and practices of sound information management to any work I do. Sound information management practices are important for robust business operations, employee productivity, information reuse and sharing - amongst others.

Information Management Roles

  • Information Governance Lead
    IAG New Zealand, New Zealand | August 2017 - November 2018
  • Knowledge and Information Manager
    Auckland War Memorial Museum, New Zealand | May 2013 - February 2015
  • Knowledge Manager and SharePoint Administrator
    First National Bank, South Africa | August 2007 - October 2010
  • Content Manager and Materials Publisher
    Insurance Institute of South Africa | October 2003 - February 2006

Examples of Projects Delivered

  • Organisation: Auckland War Memorial Museum
    Project focus: Electronic document and records management system (EDRMS) implementation
    Implementation of OpenText Content Server 10.5 as the museum's main business record repository, designed to meet the needs of end users and the museum's compliance obligations under the Public Records Act 2005.
    Role: Information management lead and subject matter expert
    Outcome: Successful implementation of the technology, under budget and within time, with content migrated and managed in the new platform and file shares closed off for use.

  • Organisation: First National Bank
    Project focus: The bank split their Corporate division into Corporate and Commercial Banking respectively, with all Commercial information residing on file shares that were due to fall out of warranty. The information across all of the file shares needed to be appraised, structured, deduplicated and migrated to a new environment for access and use by bank staff. At the same time, the bank needed to fulfil the requirements of The Companies Act of 2008, which mandated the responsible management of bank information. First National Bank made the decision to implement Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007 as their information, document and records management repository.
    Role: Business and technology lead, subject matter expert and product owner
    Outcome: Significant uptake of the solution by the business, compliance with The Companies Act of 2008 and designated one of the top 15 projects run within the bank between 2007 and 2010.

  • Organisation: IAG New Zealand
    Programme focus: Data capability development
    An important component to underpin data governance and information management in organisations is ensuring that employees are information literate, understand how to identify information sensitivity and know how to protect information. The focus of this programme was to develop and deliver courses to support an uplift in information and data literacy, as well as to provide practical tools and techniques that could be applied by learners in their daily work.
    Role: Lead instructional designer, content developer and course facilitator
    Outcome: Courses were delivered on a regular basis across major cities in New Zealand, with growing demand for attendance and positive feedback. There was regular communication that the tools and techniques taught in the courses were being applied to learners' individual contexts of work. 

My Favourite Tools, Techniques and Resources

I believe in the importance of continuous learning - both professionally and personally. I have built up a personal knowledge base, which not only serves as a record of my growth, but also helps me to return to concepts and ideas to revisit them for future work. 

Some of my favourite techniques in the information management domain are outlined below:

  • Data classification: a method that is used for the identification of different types of information with an associated means to recognise the sensitivity of information. This is an important part of building information risk profiles and designing controls.
  • Information lifecycle: a basic framework which is extensible across associated domains of data, records and document management, knowledge management and content management, providing a mechanism to design appropriate processes for the support of a repository or ways of working with information.
  • Information flow: is a method for visualising the flow of information between people, systems and within processes. This is a valuable way of understanding information risk, but also identifying and performing analysis and identifying potential causes of data quality issues. 
  • The five principles of information management: is a simple framework that provides a guide through key information management-related questions in order to formulate information management plans that are relevant and targeted towards data needs, responsibilities, data flows, technologies and data quality.