Home Page for the Information Technology (IT) Discipline

"Document Management"

Table of Contents

Introduction: Introduction: Introduction to Document Management
Framework: Using This Artifact as a "Document Management Framework"
Glossary of Related Terms: The "Document Management Glossary"
Capabilities: Document Management as an Enterprise Capability
Ownership: Clearly Defined Document Management Ownership is Critical for Success
Verbs and Actions: Understanding Why Verbs and Actions are Important to Document Management
Roles: Key Verb and Action Driven Roles For Document Management
Taxonomy: Understanding Document Management Classifications or Categorizations
Life Cycle (Lifecycle): Data Lifecycle Phases for Document Management
Metrics: Document Management Metrics
Services: Document Management as a Set of Services (a.k.a. Document Management Services)
Principles & Best Practices: Common Principles and Best Practices for Document Management
Further Reading and Reference Material for Document Management

Introduction: Introduction to Document Management

This document represents an aggregated, ordered and contextualized view of the material we've been able to compile and publish that is related to the topic of "Document Management." The goal is to make this page a landing and launch point for all things related to this topic. As our content becomes more complete and more accurate, this page should become a very useful and powerful knowledge base for this topic and all parties interested in it.

You'll find that the content for this document is consistent with that of other discipline related documents. This is intentional. The consistency is based on a knowledge pattern that helps individuals learn more about different topics, quicker and more efficiently. We hope you find the material useful and easy to learn.

It's important to realize that content in this document and any related sub-documents are constantly evolving. Therefore, we recommend you check for updates, regularly, to keep up with the latest material.

The Foundation always welcomes your feedback and suggestions for improvement, as we're always looking for ways to improve our solutions and offerings to the general community.

All solutions published by the Foundation are subject to the terms and conditions of the Foundation's Master Agreement.

Framework: Using This Artifact as a "Document Management Framework"

This document or artifact, along with everything in it, is intended to act as a "Framework" that addresses various aspects of Document Management.

The readers will notice that most sections in the Table of Contents (TOC) use a format where the TOC entry is prefixed with a topic name, followed by a short descriptive title (i.e. "TOPIC_NAME: TOPIC_RELATED_SECTION_TITLE"). This is intentional and represents a format by which the Foundation may achieve things like the identification of appropriate topic areas, the segregation of distinct topic areas from each other, the appropriate ordering of topic areas, and achieve the maintenance of consistency, both, within and across different IT Disciplines.

To elaborate, this artifact is intended to:

1. Organize different areas of the discipline known as Document Management into clear and compartmentalized areas that allow the Foundation to more effectively and productively collect, document and publish information that pertains to this discipline.
2. Decompose each area of Document Management into smaller and, therefore, more digestible units for more efficient learning and understanding.
3. Document common industry wisdom about each area, piece or subcomponent of Document Management
4. Act as a set of Document Management related best practices and guidelines that have been collected, documented, and published for the benefit of IT Professionals, regardless of their specific industry, line of business, or area of expertise.
5. Act as a consistent and repeatable pattern for documenting, publishing and learning, both, within this Discipline and across "all" Disciplines.

From the Foundation's perspective, if done correctly, all of the above will allow the Foundation to properly decompose, document and publish content related to each sub-area or sub-topic for each IT Discipline, including this specific discipline (i.e. "Document Management").

From the reader's perspective, if done correctly, all of the above will allow him or her to easily find and learn about specific areas of interest associated with this and all other IT Disciplines in a manner where the reader may effectively consume and digest material in small atomic segments that act as repeatable and more effective learning units.

As this artifact evolves and progresses, the reader will see it address key areas of the professional IT Discipline "Document Management" that range from its detailed definition through closely related terms, phrases and their definitions, to its detailed specification of Document Management Capabilities, and all the way through to defining, delivering, operating and supporting Document Management Services.

As mentioned previously, this document will continue to evolve and the Foundation recommends the reader check back, regularly, to stay abreast of modifications and new developments. It is also important to understand that the structure of this artifact may change to meet the needs of such evolution.

Glossary of Related Terms: The "Document Management Glossary"

Language between IT professionals and the businesses we serve is often a significant barrier to success, as we often spend countless hours trying to interpret each other's meanings. This is often also true between IT professionals who are taught to use certain terms and definitions as part of the organizations and industries they serve. It's when you start to jump from organization to organization, from enterprise to enterprise, and from industry to industry that you realize how much time and effort is wasted on just getting language and meanings correct. For these reasons, the Foundation puts a great deal of focus on terms and phrases, as well as their corresponding definitions. We highly recommend you spend time learning and understanding all of the related terms and phrases, along with their meanings, for all areas of "Document Management."

Document Management Glossary

Centralized Document Management	Document Management Project
Decentralized Document Management	Document Management Reference Architecture
Document	Document Management Release
Document Automation	Document Management Report
Document Capacity Management	Document Management Reporting
Document Catalog	Document Management Roadmap
Document Catalogue	Document Management Role
Document Configuration	Document Management Schedule
Document Configuration Item	Document Management Security
Document Configuration Management	Document Management Service
Document Cost	Document Management Service Assurance
Document Data Entity	Document Management Service Contract
Document Database	Document Management Service Level Agreement (SLA)
Document Decommission	Document Management Service Level Objective (SLO)
Document Delivery	Document Management Service Level Requirement (SLR)
Document Dependency	Document Management Service Level Target (SLT)
Document Deployment	Document Management Service Provider
Document File Plan	Document Management Service Request
Document Framework	Document Management Software
Document Governance	Document Management Solution
Document History	Document Management Stakeholder
Document Identifier	Document Management Standard
Document Inventory	Document Management Strategy
Document Item	Document Management Supply
Document Lifecycle	Document Management Support
Document Lifecycle Management	Document Management System
Document Management	Document Management Theory
Document Management Application	Document Management Training
Document Management Best Practice	Document Management Vision
Document Management Capability	Document Management Workflow
Document Management Center of Excellence	Document Metadata
Document Management Certification	Document Migration
Document Management Class	Document Plan
Document Management Community of Practice (CoP)	Document Portfolio
Document Management Course	Document Portfolio Management
Document Management Data	Document Processing
Document Management Data Dictionary	Document Record
Document Management Database	Document Records Management
Document Management Demand	Document Repository
Document Management Dependency	Document Reuse
Document Management Document	Document Review
Document Management Documentation	Document Schedule
Document Management File Plan	Document Schematic (Schema)
Document Management Form	Document Security
Document Management Framework	Document Software
Document Management Governance	Document Strategy
Document Management Lessons Learned	Document Support
Document Management Metric	Document Taxonomy
Document Management Operating Model	Document Termination
Document Management Organization	Document Tracking
Document Management Plan	Document Tracking Software
Document Management Platform	Document Transaction
Document Management Policy	Document Unique Identifier
Document Management Portfolio	Document Verification
Document Management Principle	Document Version
Document Management Procedure	Document Workflow
Document Management Process	Enterprise Document Management
Document Management Professional	Federated Document Management
Document Management Program	Regional Document Management
Document Management Project

Please refer to the IT Glossary for other terms and phrases that may be relevant to this professional discipline.

Readers may also refer to the Taxonomy of Glossaries for terms and phrases that are semantically grouped according to IT Disciplines or enterprise domains.

Capabilities: Document Management as an Enterprise Capability

A Capability, as it pertains to Information Technology (IT) or to an enterprise that an IT Organization serves, is defined to be "A manageable feature, faculty, function, process, service or discipline that represents an ability to perform something which yields an expected set of results and is capable of further advancement or development. In other words, a Capability is nothing more than "the ability to do something" or, quite simply, a Feature or Function. Therefore, when applied to an enterprise, a Capability represents a critical Enterprise Feature or Enterprise Function.

When it comes to Capabilities, there are multiple types that an enterprise needs to be aware of. Examples include but are not limited to:

• Business Capabilities: A set of Capabilities needed and/or offered by a Business.
• Information Technology (IT) Capabilities: A set of Capabilities needed and/or offered by an IT Organization.
• System Capabilities: A set of Capabilities needed and/or offered by a System
• Service Capabilities: A set of Capabilities needed and/or offered by a Service
• Organizational Capabilities: A set of Capabilities needed and/or offered by one or more Organizations.
• Enterprise Capabilities: A set of Capabilities needed and/or offered by an Enterprise (i.e. the combined set of all of the above).

As can be seen above, there are Capabilities that are associated with Resources, Organizations, and Assets such as Systems. All are important to an enterprise.

In the case of this IT Discipline (i.e. Document Management), we use the word Capability in the context of an Enterprise Capability or an IT Capability, which are both equivalent to Enterprise Disciplines or IT Disciplines, respectively. In short, the Capability of Document Management represents the ability to deal with any and all Document Items and anything relevant that is related to or associated with any Document Items.

If you think about it, a capability is really nothing more than a "verb" or "action that represents "the ability to do something." Understanding this allows us to derive a consistent and highly repeatable set of sub-capabilities for any Noun we're dealing with. For example:

• The ability to architect a specific Noun.
• The ability to copy a specific Noun.
• The ability to create a specific Noun.
• The ability to delete a specific Noun.
• The ability to design a specific Noun.
• The ability to edit a specific Noun.
• The ability to modify a specific Noun.
• The ability to purge a specific Noun.
• The ability to request a specific Noun.
• Etc. (The list is quite long.)

In summary, the implication is that the Enterprise Capability or Enterprise Discipline known as Document Management is the superset of all the above Sub-Capabilities, as they pertain to or are applied to the discipline-specific Noun: "Document." This now translates more specifically to:

• The ability to architect a specific Document Item.
• The ability to copy a specific Document Item.
• The ability to create a specific Document Item.
• The ability to delete a specific Document Item.
• The ability to design a specific Document Item.
• The ability to edit a specific Document Item.
• The ability to modify a specific Document Item.
• The ability to purge a specific Document Item.
• The ability to request a specific Document Item.
• Etc. (The list is quite long.)

For a more complete list of very specific Capabilities/Disciplines, refer to the Foundation's Master Inventory of IT Disciplines. It is important to note that this inventory is in a flat or non-hierarchical form, specifically because "hierarchy" is almost always a matter of personal preference or context (what hierarchy is important to one Resource or Organization may be unimportant to another's needs or requirements). Therefore, the Foundation has published its inventory of Capabilities in a non-hierarchical, flat form.

This now brings us to a very obvious problem that surrounds Capabilities, which is the fact that there are simply too many "granular" or "specific" Capabilities to document and publish in any single Capability Model. The end result is that a Capability Model may become unwieldy because of trying to incorporate so many different specific Capabilities. Also, Capability Modeling "Purists," who all have their own (and very differing) opinions about how Capability Models should or should not be represented, almost always refuse to get into the details. To address this, we recommend using a generic set of Capabilities that map to and are driven by the Systems Development Life Cycle. For example:

• Identify and Solicit Demand for Documents
• Create and Set Strategy for Documents
• Perform Research on or for Documents
• Plan for the Delivery of Documents
• Identify Requirements for Documents
• Define and Design Documents
• Build or Construct Documents
• Control Quality of or for Documents
• Deliver Documents (to Meet Identified Demand or Desire)
• Operate and Support Documents

As you can see from the above, we now have a very limited, controlled and manageable set of Discipline-specific Capabilities for the Discipline Document Management.

As a reminder, the above Capability representations are "suggestions" for baselining or initializing your own Enterprise Capability Model (ECM). It's recommended that you take the time to work with your enterprise stakeholders to improve upon and/or customize your own ECM so that you can help meet their needs. However, with that being said, it's always a better idea to go in with a baseline that you can modify rather than building your own solution from scratch, especially if your goals are to standardize, not reinvent the wheel, and not deviate too far from what other enterprises are doing to model their own environments. This is especially true if you've never had any experience building ECMs that have gained and maintained full adoption.

Why do enterprises perform Capability Modeling? Enterprises most often build Capability Models that are associated with Document Management for the following reasons...

• To create a common enterprise language for the Discipline known as Document Management.
• To create a common and reusable Document Management Taxonomy (or a Taxonomy for Document Management). Such Taxonomies can be used to help layout or structure an enterprise's Intranet (often for routing and/or traverse-ability) and tag Documents in Document Management Systems.
• To create a "Knowledge Map" or "Knowledge Model" for Document Management. Such Knowledge Maps or Models can then be translated and used for structuring training programs, establishing Communities of Practice (CoPs), and defining and publishing things like policies, processes, procedures, and standards.
• To help categorize and structure Requirements during Requirements collection and analysis.
• To help map things like Applications, Software, and Hardware to the Capability areas of Document Management.
• To help define enterprise Services, along with helping to understand who provides and consumes such services.
• To help understand what activities go on, in an enterprise, and who performs such activities.
• And much more...

Capability Modeling Recommendations: Some things to consider and keep in mind when working on or creating your Document Management and Enterprise Capability Models...

• Try and keep "context" or "contexts" out of your core model. For example, your Document Management Stakeholders may work hard to get what's important to them into the model (e.g. their "organizations" or organizational contexts), as opposed to what might actually be best for the enterprise. It's always a good idea to keep the model as pure as possible and keep such contexts out.
• While it's a good idea to keep contexts out of your core Capability Model, it will eventually become clear that Capability Contexts are, in fact, very important to your enterprise. You will have to find a way to model and represent such contexts, separately. For example, one context might be an organizational view of what organizations provide or consume specific Capabilities, such as Document Management. Such contexts often represent "cross sectional" or "pivoted" views of your model.
• One of the quickest ways to lose the interest of your enterprise is to keep your model secluded or silo-ed in a spreadsheet or database and not publish it or use it for solving other problems in the enterprise. A good Enterprise Capability Model (ECM) helps get to better Service Management Models, better Document Management Taxonomies, and (most importantly) to better Knowledge Models that can be published as traversable content on your Intranet so that stakeholders can, find, learn about, better understand and use such Capabilities.
• Once you embark on building an ECM, you will undoubtedly run into the challenge that your Business doesn't speak in terms of "Capabilities." Remember, Capability Models are things that were designed by Information Technology (IT) Architects that, very often, have never worked in a Business, built a Business, or run a Business. Some times, it's better to build models using terminology your Business understands, such as "Services," "Features," or "Functions," all terms that most Businesses are far more familiar with. However, this should not be interpreted as a deterrent to keep you from embarking on building an ECM, should it be the right thing to do for your enterprise.
• You will be hard pressed to find many, if any, reusable Capability Models that can be used as solid reference material for your own models, which is why the Foundation has taken the time to document different aspects and issues associated with Capability Modeling and Capability Models.
• You will constantly be under pressure to help define and get your Business Stakeholders to understand what a Capability is. It's for this reason that you may want to use terminology that might be more common with Businesses, such as "Services," "Functions," and/or "Features."
• It's better to start with a model you can go into your Business Stakeholder meetings with, with the intent of improving upon what you have, than it is to go in with nothing at all and build your models from scratch.
• Do your best to work with your Document Management Stakeholders to help verify and improve your Document Management Capability Model.
• Don't assume that tools will help solve your Capability Modeling needs. It's always better to start simple and work your way up to tools, after you know what you want to achieve and can realistically achieve.
• Good Capability Models will be many levels or layers "deep." Modelers that think they can represent their entire enterprise or all its key Capabilities in just a few levels of hierarchy are fooling themselves or trying to fool those that they're trying to sell their models to.
• While Capability Models may look like "hierarchical" structures when building your first few layers, good Capability Models will eventually start to share common Capabilities in different areas of the model, forcing the model to take on the structure of a multidimensional "graph."
• Keep your model published and fresh so that the enterprise can see it and use it, immediately. The more eyes you have on your model, the faster it will improve.

Ownership: Clearly Defined Document Management Ownership is Critical for Success

Here's a very simple fact... If an enterprise does not establish and enforce clearly defined Ownership (i.e. a Resources and his or her Organization are assigned as accountable ownership) for Document Management, the enterprise has automatically set itself up for failure in its implementation of that discipline. Therefore, if you and your enterprise want to implement and maintain a successful solution for Document Management, there must be a clearly defined Owner that can and will be held accountable for getting work done, providing transparency, helping with strategy setting, and coordinating implementation of Document Management as a fully functional and mature enterprise Service.

Having clearly defined Ownership should not be confused with having fully dedicated Resources that spend one hundred percent of their time working on Document Management. In fact, smaller enterprises can rarely afford to dedicate full time Resources, like larger enterprises can, to all enterprise IT Disciplines. This being the case, all IT Disciplines, including Document Management, should "always" have clearly defined Owners so that there is always a clear point of accountability and contact for any issues or work that need to be addressed.

In addition to the common best practice of having clearly assigned Ownership for Document Management, it is also considered a best practice to clearly publish and socialize Document Management Ownership details to a centralized location (often referred to as a "Service Catalog" or an "Enterprise Service Catalog"), along with Ownership details for all other IT Disciplines, so that the entire enterprise has constant access to it.

Figure: How Ownership of the Capability Document Management fits into the Canonical Model for IT

The above figure helps us understand how Capability or Discipline Ownership fits into the Canonical Model for Information Technology (IT) (i.e. "Think," "Deliver," and "Operate"). Owners are assigned to individual Disciplines or Capabilities, such as Document Management, and are instantly made accountable to the enterprise for the results of all Document Management Thinking activities (i.e. Strategy, Research, Planning and Design), all Document Management Delivery activities (i.e. Construction, Deployment and Quality Assurance), and all Document Management Operations activities (i.e. Use, Maintenance and Support). Done correctly, Document Management Ownership is constant and ongoing. It's important to understand that such assigned Ownership should "never" end so that there is clear and constant accountability and transparency for all aspects of the Canonical Model to the enterprise.

Not having clear Ownership for Document Management means that there is no clear understanding of who is accountable for it, who can provide understanding of what's going on within it, who can help the enterprise provide short term and long term descriptions of work being performed within the Discipline area to improve it over time for its customers, and who can help with getting work done that's associated with it. It means your or your enterprise's implementation for Document Management will be highly incomplete and erratic because no one is constantly (or even partially) watching over the Discipline and its needs for maintenance and evolution. Not having clear Document Management Ownership is a recipe for confusion and, sometimes, even chaos.

In summary, if you and your enterprise truly want to be successful with your implementation of Document Management, ensure that a clear and highly accountable owner is identified and assigned to the Discipline. Publish those ownership details, preferably in an enterprise's Service Catalog, and socialize it so everyone knows whom to go to for answers and for help with Document Management related work. In other words, if you want to implement Document Management as an enterprise Service, then you absolutely must start with clearly defined, published and socialized Ownership.

Verbs and Actions: Understanding Why Verbs and Actions are Important to Document Management

Throughout the Foundation's documentation, you will continuously run into the references of "Nouns and Verbs." These concepts are key to consistency and standardization, throughout the IT Industry, down to each and every IT Discipline. Given that we've discussed the impact of "Nouns" on the discipline of "Document Management," this section will start to discuss the importance of "Verbs" or "Actions" that can be performed with or against the key Noun or Nouns associated with this Discipline. To reiterate, Verbs or Actions allow us to clearly understand what can be performed on or with the Noun in question. As will be discussed in the next section, Verbs or Actions will also help us clearly identify whom it is (i.e. the "who" or more specifically the Roles) that performs or executes such Verbs or Actions against a Discipline and its associated Noun or Nouns. As will be discussed later, Verbs or Actions will also help identify key Attributes (i.e. Field Names) that are necessary for the very data definition of the Noun or Nouns for this Discipline and will even help identify which Verbs or Actions can be automated for this Discipline.

As a reminder, the base Noun for the discipline known as Document Management is: "Document," which is sometimes referred to as a the Noun: "Document Item."

By now, it should be becoming apparent that verbs represent a baseline for defining solid functional requirements and sub-capabilities for what would be a part of any good Document Management System or Service. What this means is that if you and/or your Organization is looking for a solution in this space (e.g. the purchasing or building of a software solution or the implementation of a Service to address the needs of Document Management), you could use discipline-related verbs to drive the foundation of what the solution should or shouldn't do, as mapped to specific stakeholders that will use or provide the solution.

Examples of the types of Verbs or Actions that are important to this Discipline include but are not limited to:

• Architect
• Create
• Edit/Modify
• Delete
• Design
• Copy
• Own
• Manage
• Etc.

The above list represents a very small subset of all Verbs or Actions that are relevant for this Discipline. The more complete set can be found in the Roles section of this document, where readers can see the direct correlation of Verb to Noun and to, both, Generic Role and Discipline Specific Role.

Roles: Key Verb and Action Driven Roles For Document Management

An "action" or a "verb" is something that can be performed on or with a specific "noun." The reason it is important to itemize all relevant verbs is because we can now start to determine what we can or cannot do with the noun in question, where in this case the noun is "Document."

Actions/Verbs	Example as Applied to "Document"	Generic Roles	Discipline-Specific Roles
Administrate	Administrate Document	Administrator	Document Administrator
Approve	Approve Document	Approver	Document Approver
Architect	Architect Document	Architector	Document Architector
Archive	Archive Document	Archiver	Document Archiver
Audit	Audit Document	Auditor	Document Auditor
Bundle	Bundle Document	Bundler	Document Bundler
Clone	Clone Document	Cloner	Document Cloner
Code	Code Document	Coder	Document Coder
Configure	Configure Document	Configurer	Document Configurer
Copy	Copy Document	Copier	Document Copier
Create	Create Document	Creator	Document Creator
Decommission	Decommission Document	Decommissioner	Document Decommissioner
Delete	Delete Document	Deletor	Document Deletor
Deploy	Deploy Document	Deployer	Document Deployer
Deprecate	Deprecate Document	Deprecator	Document Deprecator
Design	Design Document	Designer	Document Designer
Destroy	Destroy Document	Destroyer	Document Destroyer
Develop	Develop Document	Developer	Document Developer
Distribute	Distribute Document	Distributor	Document Distributor
Download	Download Document	Downloader	Document Downloader
Edit	Edit Document	Editor	Document Editor
Educate	Educate Document	Educator	Document Educator
Export	Export Document	Exporter	Document Exporter
Govern	Govern Document	Governor	Document Governor
Import	Import Document	Importer	Document Importer
Initialize	Initialize Document	Initializer	Document Initializer
Install	Install Document	Installer	Document Installer
Instantiate	Instantiate Document	Instantiator	Document Instantiator
Integrate	Integrate Document	Integrator	Document Integrator
Manage	Manage Document	Manager	Document Manager
Merge	Merge Document	Merger	Document Merger
Modify	Modify Document	Modifier	Document Modifier
Move	Move Document	Mover	Document Mover
Own	Own Document	Owner	Document Owner
Package	Package Document	Packager	Document Packager
Persist	Persist Document	Persister	Document Persister
Plan	Plan Document	Planner	Document Planner
Purge	Purge Document	Purger	Document Purger
Receive	Receive Document	Receiver	Document Receiver
Record	Record Document	Recorder	Document Recorder
Recover	Recover Document	Recoverer	Document Recoverer
Register	Register Document	Registrar	Document Registrar
Relocate	Relocate Document	Relocator	Document Relocator
Reject	Reject Document	Rejecter	Document Rejecter
Remove	Remove Document	Remover	Document Remover
Replicate	Replicate Document	Replicator	Document Replicator
Report	Report Document	Reporter	Document Reporter
Request	Request Document	Requestor	Document Requestor
Restore	Restore Document	Restorer	Document Restorer
Review	Review Document	Reviewer	Document Reviewer
Save	Save Document	Saver	Document Saver
Search	Search Document	Searcher	Document Searcher
Split	Split Document	Splitter	Document Splitter
Sponsor	Sponsor Document	Sponsor	Document Sponsor
Store	Store Document	Storer	Document Storer
Strategize	Strategize Document	Strategizer (or Strategy Setter)	Document Strategizer (or Document Strategy Setter)
Support	Support Document	Supporter	Document Supporter
Train	Train Document	Trainer	Document Trainer
Upgrade	Upgrade Document	Upgrader	Document Upgrader
Upload	Upload Document	Uploader	Document Uploader
Version	Version Document	Versioner	Document Versioner
View	View Document	Viewer	Document Viewer

At a minimum, the above list of Verbs can be used to help identify, track, and manage the basic "Features" required by and associated with Document Management, even if your enterprise doesn't maintain a Capability Model that lists specific Document Management Capabilities. Application designers, developers, and architects often find such Verb Lists or Feature Inventories to be invaluable.

Taxonomy: Understanding Document Management Classifications or Categorizations

A Taxonomy, in its noun form, is defined as:

...a documented and orderly set of types, classifications, categorizations and/or principles that are often achieved through mechanisms including but not limited to naming, defining and/or the grouping of attributes, and which ultimately help to describe, differentiate, identify, arrange and provide contextual relationships between the entities for which the Taxonomy exists.

From this general definition, we can derive that the definition for a Document Management Taxonomy is:

...a documented and orderly set of types, classifications, categorizations and/or principles that are often achieved through mechanisms including but not limited to naming, defining and/or the grouping of attributes, and which ultimately help to describe, differentiate, identify, arrange and provide contextual relationships between Document Items, Entities or Types.

In short, what this means all means is that a Taxonomy is nothing more than a classification or typing mechanism and that a Document Taxonomy is nothing more than a classification or typing mechanism that helps people and systems distinguish between different Document Items, Entities, Types, Records or any other Document Management element you can think of.

It's important to understand that Taxonomies can be as simple as a list of relevant terms or phrases with respective meanings or definitions or they can take on more complex forms, such as hierarchical and graphical model structures that can be homogeneous and heterogeneous in nature. More complex Taxonomies include examples such as "Visual Taxonomies" and "Audible Taxonomies" but, expect in the case of very special technologies, are typically out of scope for general Information Technology (IT) Operations.

The Foundation directs readers to its ever-evolving Inventory of Taxonomies for Standard Taxonomy suggestions. Specifically, readers may want to start with the Taxonomy of Taxonomies, which helps make it clear that the IT Industry is composed of many hundreds if not thousands of Taxonomies, Classifications, Categorizations or Types.

Life Cycle (Lifecycle): Data Lifecycle Phases for Document Management

Data Lifecycle (or Life Cycle) for any and all data is the period from the "inception" of data through to its ultimately being "purged" from existence. This is no different for Document Management related data.

Like the data associated with any other professional IT Discipline, Document Management related data adheres to the following common Data Lifecycle Phases:

Figure: Document Management Lifecycle Phases

1. Inception: Data is in it's raw idea-like form and is not ready for consumption by the general population because it has not been documented or registered, anywhere, in a formal manner.
2. Creation and Registration: Data is formally put into existence for day-to-day use by appropriate stakeholders.
3. Iterative Maintenance: Data is in a mode of constant use and is updated and modified, as needed, to meet the needs of daily use by various stakeholders.
4. Decommission and Deletion: Data is prepared for deletion and eventually deleted from daily operational use but still exists for administrative or organizational purposes, such as historical auditing. It can be restored to any one of its relevant last states and, therefore, can be brought back into existence for day-to-day use.
5. Purged From Existence: Data is completely removed from an environment with no means to restore or reconstruct it, without recreating it from scratch and with no guarantees that it will match it's previous state.

The above Life Cycle Phases represent the high level transitions that occur from the inception of Document Items or Entities all the way through to their complete elimination from existence. A more detailed breakdown of these transitions or phases represents what are referred to as "Document Management States."

Metrics: Document Management Metrics

As with any professional Discipline, the place to start with when dealing with Document Management specific metrics is with standard metrics categorizations. Standard Metrics Categorizations, or what are commonly referred to as "SMCs," include but are not limited to...

• Quantitative Metrics or, in this case, Document Management Quantitative Metrics
• Qualitative Metrics or, in this case, Document Management Qualitative Metrics
• Time Metrics or, in this case, Document Management Time Metrics
• Utilization Metrics or, in this case, Document Management Utilization Metrics
• Financial Metrics or, in this case, Document Management Financial Metrics

Document Management Quantitative Metrics: Quantitative metrics for Document Management often revolve around the "counting" of key constructs that are associated with the Discipline. For example, the number of Document Items or Entities that have been Created, Edited or Modified, Copied or Cloned, Destroyed, Archived, Restored, etc. (Note the correlations to key Document Management Verbs!). Also, the counts for things like the number of Document Management Stakeholders, such as but not limited to Paying Customers, End Users, Employees, Consultants, etc. are also very useful.

Document Management Qualitative Metrics: Qualitative metrics for Document Management often revolve around concepts such as Document Management Defects, Failures, Problems, Incidents, and/or Issues. So, for example, if we were to capture the number of Document Management Defects (i.e. their counts) over time, we could do things like see if Defect quantities are going up or down, over time, allowing us to explore that area for things like correlating Causes and Effects.

Document Management Time Metrics: When dealing with Document Management Time Metrics, there are usually two forms. The first was introduced in the previous paragraph, which has to do with capturing and measuring things like Quantitative or Qualitative Metrics, over time. In this case, we capture other metric categories, over time, with the intent to see how they change and perform, based on modifications to the Document Management Operating Environment. The second form of Time related metrics has to do with system or operational performance, such as in the case of how long it takes to process a Document Management Request, from the time it is created to the time the Requester gets a satisfactory deliverable that allows him or her to move on with his or her work.

Document Management Utilization Metrics: Utilization Metrics specifically have to do with the consumption of Document Management specific solutions or deliverables. For example, tracking the number of Document Management Service Requests, over periods of time, along with their corresponding Document Management Deliverables, allows one to measure how active Document Management Services are against other Services that may exist within the Enterprise.

Document Management Financial Metrics: As is always the case for any single Discipline, Financial Metrics for Document Management always revolve around things like revenue, expenses, and profits, both, for operators of the Service or Services and for consumers of the Service or Services. For example, if a Document Management Request is invoked by a Document Management Customer (acting as the "Requester"), it becomes important to be able to identify and understand what the cost is to that Customer who is invoking the Request, and it also becomes important to understand why that cost is what it is. In the case of Services that do not yield revenue or profits, measuring costs is a strong way to, at very least, help understand the costs associated with each Service being performed by, within, external to, and for the Enterprise and its Customers.

Note: It's important to understand that, when it comes to metrics, enterprises should take a "Crawl," "Walk," "Run" approach to collecting, working with, and understanding them. That is, you cannot get to complex metrics collection, dissection, analysis, and understanding until you start with basic metrics and slowly work your way to more complex metrics representations.

Services: Document Management as a Set of Services (a.k.a. Document Management Services)

One of the most important concepts you will learn about Document Management (or any Discipline, for that matter) is the notion of implementing the Discipline as an accountable, planned, controlled, transparent, and managed "Service."

In short, Services represent a logically "bounded" and repeatable sets of work types, activities or tasks that are performed by humans and/or machines, with the specific intent to provide outputs or deliverables, in the form of solutions for the requesting Stakeholders who are commonly considered the customers of such Services. In other words, we perform and/or provide a Service to deliver very specific solutions to very specific Stakeholders who are looking for a means to solve a certain problem they have.

Services can be performed manually (i.e. by people), automatically (i.e. by machines such as Computers), or by a combination of the two (i.e. a hybrid that is both manually and automated).

Document Management Service Components: The successful implementation of Document Management as a set of Services for your enterprise usually implies that a number of key components have been established to support it. These components are:

1. A clearly documented and socialized Document Management Service Owner
2. A clearly documented and socialized Document Management Service Provider, Organization or Group who is performing the Service or work
3. A clearly documented and socialized inventory of all Document Management Service Inputs, including Document Management Service Requests and any artifacts necessary to support such Requests
4. For every Document Management Service Input, a clearly documented and socialized inventory of Document Management Service Outputs, making it clear to consumers what they can expect to receive as a result of a successful Service Request
5. For every Document Management Service Input, a clearly documented and socialized inventory of the work being performed by the Service Provider to achieve such Outputs or Deliverables
6. For every Document Management Service Input, a clearly documented and socialized inventory Service Levels that can be used to set expectations and measure actuals against for said Service Outputs

Document Management Ownership: The most important thing to understand about a Document Management Service is that, in order for such a Service to be successful, there must be a clear and accountable Owner for it. That is, there needs to be a very clear and accountable named person or organization that owns and is fully responsible for the Service, all of its sub-Services and, most importantly, all of the Service's "Outcomes." Without clear ownership, Services are almost never successful. And, for those few occasions where Services are successful without clear ownership, you can assume that they're successful because the people working in those Service areas are acting as heroes, or... the those Services are just plain lucky (that kind of luck doesn't last for long).

Document Management Service Inputs: There are typically two types of inputs to any Document Management Service. The first is what is known as a "Document Management Service Request" and the second really represents any and all supporting artifacts that are necessary to support such requests, including but not limited to Data and Information in the form of Documents, either electronic or paper in form. Many would argue that the "money" to pay for the Service execution of the Request would be the third but, for now, we will assume that payment is controlled through the Data and Information provided to the Service Operators, in support of the Request.

Document Management Service Outputs: The outputs of any Service are often referred to as the Service's Deliverables. Therefore, the readers should be aware that the terms "Document Management Outputs" and "Document Management Deliverables" are synonymous and interchangeable. All work performed in any enterprise is, by default, a Service that is being performed for someone else and, therefore, all work or Services yield results. These results are the Service's Outputs or Deliverables and a good Service ensures that such Outputs are appropriately documented to the consumers of said Service. This means that for any given Document Management Service Request Type or Category there will be one or more clearly defined and documented Outputs or Deliverables, making it clear to the consumer what he, she, or they will get in response to their Request. This can be as simple as an answer to a question or as complex as the Merger of two enterprises.

Document Management Service Levels: Service Levels represent "performance agreements," contractual or otherwise, that dictate how well a Document Management Service should perform, most often keeping the Customers, Consumers, Clients or End Users of the Service in mind. Document Management Service Levels can come in many forms and are often worked out by the Customers paying for the Services and the Service Providers who sell or provide the Services. In many cases, Service Levels are also self-imposed by the Service Providers performing the Services as a means to set expectations for Service Customers. In short, Document Management Service Levels are constraints, limitations, and/or expectations that are tied directly to Document Management Service Deliverables. They represent measures for things like quality, efficiency, and cost against said Deliverables or Outputs that allow the consumer of such Services to measure what they actually get against what they expected to get.

Principles & Best Practices: Common Principles and Best Practices for Document Management

A "Principle" is defined as being: "A professed assumption, basis, tenet, doctrine, plan of action or code of conduct for activities, work or behavior." Therefore, we can deduce the definition of "a Document Management Principle" to be:

Document Management Principle: "1. A professed assumption, basis, tenet, doctrine, plan of action or code of conduct for any activities, work or behavior associated with the Discipline known as Document Management."

A "Best Practice" is defined as being: "One or more Activities, Actions, Tasks or Functions that often do not conform with strict Standards and that have evolved, over time, to be considered as conventional wisdom for consistently and repeated achieving Outcomes or Results that can be measured as being equal to or above acceptable norms." Therefore, we can deduce the definition of "a Document Management Best Practice" to be:

Document Management Best Practice: "1. One or more Document Management related Activities, Actions, Tasks or Functions that often do not conform with strict standards and that have evolved, over time, to be considered as conventional wisdom for consistently and repeatedly achieving Outcomes or Results that can be measured as being equal to or above acceptable norms."

The plural form of this term would be "Document Management Best Practices."

Common Document Management related principles and best practices exist to help achieve higher than average expectations of quality and to ease in the implementation, support, operations, and future change associated with the solutions industry professionals put in place to address the needs of this Discipline and all its related stakeholders.

While this entire document is meant to represent and serve as a set of common principles and best practices for Document Management, the following list represents a summary of some very basic examples of what implementers, supporters, and operators of Document Management should constantly be working toward:

Principle or Best Practice	Description
Establish and always have very clear Ownership for Document Management.	Establishing, publishing and socializing clear Ownership for Document Management allows an enterprise and all its Resources, regardless of their geographic location, to assign accountability for all aspects of the Discipline. It also ensures that there's always at least one person that everyone can go to for transparency into the Discipline as well as for handling work that is associated with the Discipline.
Always use standard terminology for Document Management, in order to standardize communications between stakeholders.	It is often argued that the biggest mistake you can make is to create your own words and/or your own definitions, when communicating with others. There is no place where this is more accurate than in the field of Information Technology. IT Stakeholders make up their own words and definitions far too often, or let their business constituents do so. When you make up words or definitions, or you let others do so, you're creating a grave injustice for your organization. Self invented terminology and grammar often leads to poor communications, which in turn leads to redundancy of solutions, higher complexity of environments, slower delivery times, and much higher costs. Therefore, the IF4IT always recommends that you leverage standard terminology for Document Management, whenever possible.
Centralization of Document related data.	While often impossible to centralize and collocate all Document related data and information, especially in a geographically dispersed environment, Document Management related stakeholders should always strive to centralize all data and information. The goals are to eliminate data fragmentation, improve source of truth for data, reduce the number of systems needed to support stakeholders, reduce the complexity of solutions, improve usability, and to ultimately reduce the costs associated with Document Management.
Transparency of Document related data.	Stakeholders should always strive to make any and all Document Management data transparent to all other appropriate stakeholders, at a minimum, and often to the entire enterprises. The exception when private user data must be protected. Many stakeholders often make the mistake of treating internal operational data as private or protected. This often creates a data silo and will often lead to internally silo-ed organizations that revolve around such data silos.
Do not let "perfection" of Document Management solutions stand in the way of "good enough solutions".	Often, Document Management stakeholders "overthink" solutions, leading to the impression that best-of-breed or perfect solutions are more effective than "good enough" solutions. Experience tells us that "good enough" is, almost always, the better path to follow. We live in an age where technologies grow old in the blink of an eye. Even the implementation of something that looks perfect, today, will look antiquated, tomorrow. This is especially true if your enterprise doesn't have a long term funding plan and commitment to improvements and upgrades of the solution(s) put in place.
Follow industry Standards, Best Practices, and Guiding Principles for Document Management, whenever possible".	One of the most common errors many enterprises make is to create solutions from scratch or without the guidance, assistance and/or experience of others who have created such solutions, before them. Whenever possible, the IF4IT recommends that you research existing Standards, Best Practices, and Guiding Principles to avoid the mistakes of others, while also gaining from their successes. Remember, we live in a vast world. Chances are very high that someone else has already experienced the pain you're about to create for yourself. Wise people will always look to learn from such people's experiences before they go down the road of implementing their own solutions.
Work toward and maintain a Single Source of Truth (SSoT), whenever possible.	While it may be impossible to truly maintain a Single Source of Truth (SSoT) for all data items at all times, especially in the case where the same data entity or instance enters an enterprise through unique data channels, it is an accepted, industry-wide best practice to always work toward such a goal.

Further Reading and Reference Material for Document Management

The Information Technology (IT) Learning Framework. A tutorial that helps understand Information Technology and how disciplines, such as this one, fits into the bigger picture of IT Operations.