We are living in the age of information and one of the greatest challenges in the digital world is governing, harnessing, managing, protecting, using and reusing the vast amount of information and data we’re generating.
To help NSW government agencies manage and use their information as a key strategic asset, the Department of Finance, Services and Innovation (DFSI), in conjunction with some fantastic government partners, has developed a new version of its Information Management Framework.
The Information Management Framework (IMF) has been designed as a practical tool to help agencies deal with the very meaty information and data challenges they are facing in today’s digital world. It will also help them implement effective approaches to digital information management and identify how they can expand and improve their information management practice.
The IMF demonstrates that the NSW Government takes information and data management very seriously, and embeds privacy, security and governance at the core of its information management initiatives.
This is because:
- information is an asset
- it has value to business and to the community
- it needs to be governed and managed well
- its use and reuse must be enabled so that its value can continue to be leveraged
- privacy and security are critical
- information evidentiality, longevity and accessibility are necessary for business and community accountability.
Tools like the IMF are increasingly important because information management needs to be a multi-disciplinary exercise that is applied in all transformation initiatives.
The IMF can help professionals from a range of fields communicate, collaborate and define how to manage and leverage data and information in their digital transformation initiatives. This could be in SharePoint rollouts, data analytics projects or commissioning new cloud-based business services.
For example, the principles in the Framework, like ‘trustworthy, used and reused with confidence’ and ‘high quality and spatially enabled’, help project teams to define the key qualities of the information and data in their project.
The requirements section of the Framework then prompts project teams to take account of all relevant legislation and policies applying to their information, lifecycle management requirements and customer and business needs for data and information.
It next frames governance requirements and then drills down into the specific capabilities that enable all the above to be achieved.
For all transformation projects it’s likely that many elements including information planning and design, security, data management, and business intelligence and analytics will be required.
The IMF is not a mandatory tool, but we’re already receiving great responses from agencies saying that it’s assisting with planning and is helping diverse groups of professionals to collaborate on strategic information and data initiatives.
We’re really pleased to be getting this positive reaction but we’d also welcome all feedback from different types of professionals who are trying to advance information and data management in their organisations.
A wonderful team of agencies came together with DFSI to help us develop the IMF. We would like to give a huge thanks to Transport for NSW, Family and Community Services, Sydney Water, Service NSW, Spatial Services, City of Sydney and everyone represented on our Information Management Community of Expertise.
Our next steps are to start building out more practical tools to sit within the framework, which will help people to further embed good information management processes in their business processes.
If you’ve developed resources in your agency that you’d like to share, or if you’d like join our IM Community of Expertise, or if you’ve got questions or comments about the Framework, please contact us on IMExperts@finance.nsw.gov.au