Abstract

This text was first published in English in the “Records Management Journal” in 2013 (Hagmann 2013). It aims to discuss the still immature concept of Information Governance (IG) from a Records and Information Management (RIM) perspective and tries to identify some critical aspects, essential elements and challenges, drawing lessons from the experience of a large company in a global environment. After a critical review of the term “information governance,” the paper explains some issues that have proven to be major barriers to success in IG implementation within a given organization.

Results: Practical experience shows the importance of carefully defining the IG framework (scoping) in larger organizations, in particular weighing the representation of all relevant stakeholders (especially business units, core processes) and investing specifically in initiatives that are conducive to an information management culture. Equally critical to success is corporate communication, the appreciation of information as a corporate asset, and the importance of information lifecycle management, which emphasizes the relevance of business information rather than technology (motto: “putting the ‘I’ into IT”). The paper presents findings on problems and pitfalls in creating and implementing an IG program. It is hoped that the professional communities in information management and IT will be inspired to conduct more exploratory research of this nature to encourage them to increase the need for IG in their own organizations. The present German version of the article has been somewhat modified and expanded in terms of content – in particular to include the first German-language monograph (Wildhaber 2015), which deals comprehensively with the topic of “Information Governance” and recommends a new implementation method(MATRIO®). The paper also includes a few thoughts on the future of information governance and records management based on developments over the past few years.

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