Your Document Management Knowledge Center

The United States government has issued a mandate for federal agencies, stated simply, “move to the cloud”.  Federal agencies are now required to take a “cloud first” approach.  If an application exists on the cloud and is cost-effective, reliable and secure, then the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) requires the agency to use the cloud application by default.

When Best is not the Best

Years ago, when I started in the IT department for a Fortune 500 car manufacturing company, I learned valuable lessons that have served me well.  If it wasn’t for Rob, my manager, I would never have implemented a single successful system.

If you think about the number of children in the world, it’s obvious that Santa has the largest manufacturing and distribution facility on the planet.  Can you imagine what it takes to run a facility this large?

It’s always a privilege to work with non-governmental organizations (NGO).  What’s so striking about all of them is their people.  They have a calling; they are on a mission to improve some aspect of the world.  It doesn’t matter whether they are helping children, working to restore human rights or providing humanitarian aid to disaster victims, these people are committed to their causes.

Unfortunately pure belief in their cause is not enough.  Doing “good” in the world requires funding.  And funding always comes with strings attached.  There are always expectations to meet and expectations to manage.  How well an NGO manages these expectations directly relates to their success as an organization.

You would think that an NGO would be measured purely on their ability to carry out their mission.  Well in many ways they are.  However, when you consider the strings attached with funding, most funding sources want reports, not just on successful efforts, but also on how and where the money was spent.  Saving lives or improving living conditions for people, whether it’s for 1 person or 1 million people, seems like that should be sufficient.  But it’s not.

This is where compliance and reporting come in.  By keeping accurate records of every transaction, NGO’s can report on exactly how money was spent.  This reporting enables them to comply with the commitments usually associated with funding.  Sadly, this is the one area where most NGO’s fail.  They can report, and they can be in compliance, but they are missing a very big opportunity.

With the right reporting in place, NGO’s can become very, very efficient.  Why is this a big deal?  Every dollar not wasted can be used for the furtherance of their mission.

It’s not just a reporting problem.  Truly understanding how money is spent and how services are delivered enables NGO’s to improve their processes.  Improved processes translate directly into improved services and faster delivery times.  And when you are saving lives or caring for those less fortunate, this is a VERY BIG deal.

What happens in many NGO’s is that they are focused on their mission.  Everything they do is time critical and urgent.  This means they don’t have time to focus on something as boring sounding as process improvement.  Yet, when process improvement is focused on, less money is spent on non-essential activities which frees up capital for the truly important work.  

For example, many NGO’s send urgent documents using FedEx.  They use FedEx because they can track it and it’s fast.  Over time, the number of FedEx packages increases to the point where the FedEx delivery person is making multiple trips using a hand truck to cart off the packages.  The cost of this is staggering.  Yet, this is not an exaggeration.  We’ve seen the packages.

If instead, they spent the time to figure out how they could send these documents electronically, or better yet, use electronic signature, they would save much needed capital.  This is where the reporting comes in.  Yes, it’s used for compliance.  But its true benefits come when NGO’s analyze the reports with a goal towards improving their processes so they can serve more people.

When you think of case management, what comes to mind?  For some, it’s the facilitation of treatment plans to assure the appropriate medical care is provided to disabled, ill or injured individuals.  For others it is a set of management approaches for law firms or courts.  And for investigators, whether they are private or law enforcement, case management is the collection of data and documents specific to an investigation.

What all three types of case management have in common is a large volume of information.  However, they also have one other major characteristic.  They are all time sensitive.  It’s not about the data or documents, it’s about effectively treating the ill, winning the legal battle, or finding the truth in an investigation.  All of these demand speed and efficiency.  

Let’s look at investigative case management.  Any investigation generates and/or accumulates documents.  The documents are mailed in, faxed in, scanned in or created electronically.  The documents are related to each other based on their content.  While they all are related to the case as a whole, there would be portions of an investigation that would be categorized separately.

For instance, if interviews were conducted, each interviewee would have a separate set of documents.  If photos were taken, each set of photos would be categorized by subject.  Depending upon the size and complexity of an investigation, the sheer volume of data and documents can be overwhelming.  Investigators need to make sense of all this information.  Online case management can eliminate the complexity of sifting through all this data.

One of our customers, an investigative government agency, has streamlined its case management by 66% resulting in faster investigations with fewer resources.  Previously an investigation lasted approximately 150 days, now the same investigation can be accomplished in 50 days.  In this instance, removing the physical handling of paper documents resulted in a huge reduction in time.  Documents are now shared electronically across remote locations eliminating the need to faxing, couriers and copies.  With online document management, access to information in immediate.  This allows investigators to concentrate on their cases and not waste time chasing down documents.

So what documents are you chasing down?  What do cases do you manage?  And can you become more effective with online case management?  

Interested in learning more?  Please visit our website for more information on Online Document Management and Workflow.

Too much information, a phrase that has a number of meanings.  For some it means that a friend is sharing way more than you ever wanted to know about some aspect of their personal life.  For others it’s the constant barrage of news, e-mails, Internet search results, tweets, text messages, phone calls and so on.

Sorting through all this information to find useful or relevant information is what separates out the productive people from the overwhelmed.  It separates out the successful from the frustrated and it sometimes it even separates the happy people from the sad people.

Think about your day. 
•    How many e-mails did you receive today?  How many of those were worthwhile?
•    How many calls did you get today?  Were any of them productive?
•    How many meetings were you in?  Did you want to be in any of them?
•    How many web pages did you read?  Did you learn anything useful?
Now look at your office.
•    How many piles of paper do you have?  Do you know what’s in them?
•    How many documents are you supposed to read today?  Are they right in front of you?
•    How many deadlines do you have?  Are you prepared to meet them?

This is a problem in society.  This is the same problem at work.  Too much!  Too much information and most of it is not relevant. 

So how do you solve this problem in both your personal life and your work life?

Turn off the autopilot and take charge of your life.  Don’t let the information drive you.  Instead use the relevant information to get to your destination.  Choose where you want to go; choose what you want to accomplish.  Then delegate, automate and ignore the rest!
 
First let’s discuss your day.

E-mail
How often do you check your e-mail?  It does not matter what the answer is; both you and I know it’s way too often.  Will the world end if you only checked it once or twice a day?  Do you feel the need to respond to all e-mails?  How much time does that take?  If you feel that you must respond to all e-mails, craft some canned responses that you can copy and paste into a response.  Over time you can answer a majority of your e-mails this way.

Phone calls
You do not have to answer the phone.  Use caller id to your advantage.  If you know you need to take the call, then do so.  But when you answer, thank the other person for calling.  Then let them know you were busy, but saw it was them so you picked up the phone.  This makes them feel special.  It also allows you to get right to the point on the call and not waste time.
For the calls that go into voice mail, call them back after hours.  You can leave a detailed message in under two minutes that would answer any question.  This eliminates long conversations and at the same time lets you be responsive.

Meetings
Just say no.  If you have to go to a meeting, make sure there is an agenda.  Keep everyone on track in the meeting.  And here’s the hard part, leave if it’s not productive.  You do not have to be the boss to do this.  If questioned by your boss about your new practice, explain that it’s all about getting things done and being productive.

The Internet
What a time sink this has become.  We think of the Internet as a place to get information.  Instead think of it as a dangerous destination similar to the island in Greek Mythology where the Sirens sang their songs.  For those not familiar with the Sirens, they were a group of creatures who looked like beautiful women, but were really man-eating beasts. They sat on the shore and sang with voices so beautiful and compelling that anyone who heard their song became absolutely mesmerized. So mesmerized, in fact, that they became obsessed with reaching the shore to get closer to the sound. 

And then the Sirens would eat them.
This describes the Internet perfectly.  We get so mesmerized by pages upon pages of information that we don’t notice that our time was eaten by the Internet beast.  If you use the Internet, schedule time to use it and please, please set an alarm or alert to remind you to stop!!!

Now let’s look at your office.

Paper
The sheer volume of documents that people touch or read in a day is unbelievable.  Worse yet, what do most people do with these documents?  They put them in piles for later use or they file them never to be found again.  Think about how much time you waste looking at the same documents over and over again, or looking for a specific document.  Stop using paper!  With the right online document management systems you can capture, store and retrieve documents instantaneously.  This eliminates the time spend sorting through piles and file cabinets.  If you don’t think you spend a lot of time dealing with paper; for one day, just jot down each piece of paper you touch.  You will be horrified!

Deadlines
The problem with deadlines is not that work has to be completed by a certain time; it’s that you have way too much competing for your time and attention.  If you streamline your life and your work, you will find that you can meet your deadlines much, much easier.

In the end, it’s all about time.  The less time you waste, the more time you have to do what really matters.  Don’t waste time listening to “too much information” and don’t waste time sorting through irrelevant information.

What matters to you might be spending more time with your loved ones or getting more done at work.  No matter what is important to you, using your time wisely will turn you into one of the productive, successful and happy people that we all aspire to be.

Interested in improving your organizations efficiency?  Learn more about Online Document Management.