Information Management

The Information Management process is a set of activities associated with the collection and management of information from one or more sources and the distribution of that information to one or more audiences. Information in its most restricted technical sense is an ordered sequence of symbols that record or transmit a message. The key idea is that information is a collection of facts organized in such a way that they have additional value beyond the value of the facts themselves. The systems engineer is both the generator and recipient of information products; thus, the systems engineer has a vital stake in success of the development and use of the information management process and Information Management systems.

Information can exist in many forms in an organization - some of it related to a specific system development program, some held at an enterprise level and made available to programs as required. It may be held in electronic format or in physical form (for instance, paper drawings or documents, microfiche or other photographic records).

The Information management process includes a set of interrelated activities associated with information systems, system of systems, architectures, services, netted hardware/ platforms, and people. Fundamentally, this process is a set of activities that are concerned with improvements in a variety of human problem-solving endeavors. This involvement includes the design, development, and use of technologically based systems and processes that enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of information and associated knowledge in a variety of strategic/business, tactical, and operational situations.

Management means the organization of and control over process activities associated with the structure, processing and delivery of information. For example, the organizational structure must have management processes capable of managing this information throughout the information lifecycle regardless of source or format (data, paper documents, electronic documents, audio, video, etc.) for delivery through multiple channels that may include cell phones and web interfaces.

A computer-based Information Management system is an organized combination of people, hardware, software, communication networks and the data resources that collects, transforms and disseminates information in an organization. From the perspective of the systems engineer, the Information Management process is a cycle of inter-related information activities to be planned for, designed, and coordinated. Numerous lifecycle development process models exist. Provided below is a high level process model that emphasis the role of the systems engineer (please see Figure 1, Life Cycle Information Management Process Development Model).

Figure 1. Life Cycle Information Management Process Development Model

The systems engineer function in the development of an Information Management system is concerned with several rate-limiting architecture and design variables, such as, information sharing, quality, security, efficiency and compliance that should be considered up-front in the life cycle development process. Each of these variables can be subdivided into architecture and design considerations for the information system of interest. For example, quality can be viewed in terms of data validity, consistency and comprehensiveness.

Figure 2. Information Management Architecture and Design Considerations

The effective and efficient employment of Information Management systems should solve business needs. These needs can center of several business objectives, such as, efficiency, effectiveness, competitiveness, and profitability. From a business enterprise perspective, the systems engineer may be involved in several activities in support of the development of Information Management systems, such as, strategic planning, analyses of technology and business trends, development of applications, an understanding of operational disciplines, resource control techniques, and assessment of organization structures.

The Information Management process ensures that necessary information is created, stored, retained, protected, managed and made easily available to those with a need and who are permitted access. It also ensures that information is disposed of when it is no longer relevant.

The Information Management Process

To quote from ISO/IEC 15288:2008:

The purpose of the Information Management Process is to provide relevant, timely, complete, valid and, if required, confidential information to designated parties during, and, as appropriate, after the system life cycle.

This process generates, collects, transforms, retrieves, disseminates and disposes of information, including technical, project, organizational, agreement and user information

The first step in the Information Management process is to Plan Information Management. The output of this step is the Information Management Strategy or Information Management Plan.

The second step is to Perform Information Management. The outputs of this step are the creation, population and maintenance of one or more Information Repositories, together with the creation and dissemination of Information Management Reports

Plan Information Management

Issues that should be considered when creating the Information Management Strategy/Plan include:

• What information has to be managed?
• How long does the information have to be retained?
• What level of configuration control has to be applied to the information?
• Are there any regulatory requirements relating to the management of information for this project? This could include export control requirements.
• Are there any customer requirements or agreements relating to the management of project information?
• Are there any Industry Standards relating to the management of project information?
• Are there any Organization/Enterprise directives, procedures or standards relating to the management of project information?
• Are there any Project directives, procedures or standards relating to the management of project information?
• Who is allowed access to the information? This could include people working the project, other members of the Organization/Enterprise, Customers, Partners, Suppliers and Regulatory Authorities
• Are there requirements to protect the information from unauthorized access? This could include Intellectual Property rights that have to be respected - for instance if information from suppliers is to be stored and there is the possibility of a supplier gaining access to information belonging to a competitor who is also a supplier for the project.
• Is a system data dictionary required to be able to "tag" information for ease of search and retrieval?
• What media will be used for the information to be managed - physical or electronic or both?
• What data repository or repositories are to be used?
• Has Work in Progress (WIP) as well as formally released information been considered when establishing data repositories?
• Has the volume of information to be stored been considered when selecting repositories?
• Has speed of access and search been considered when selecting repositories?
• If electronic information is to be stored, what file formats are/are not allowed?
• If electronic information is to be stored for a long time, how will it be "future-proofed" - for instance, are neutral file formats available, or will copies of the software that created or used the information be retained?
• Have disaster recovery requirements been considered - for instance if a server holding electronic information is destroyed, are there back-up copies of the information? Are the back-up copies regularly accessed to show that information recovery is flawless?
• Is there a formal requirement to archive designated information for compliance with legal (including regulatory), audit and information retention requirements? If so, has an archive and archiving method been defined?
• Some information may not be required to be stored (for instance, the results files for analyses when the information occupies a large volume and can be regenerated by the analysis tool and the input file). However, if the cost to re-generate the information is high, consider doing a cost/benefit analysis for storage versus regeneration.
• Have requirements been defined to ensure that the information being stored is valid?
• Have requirements been defined to ensure that information is disposed of correctly when it is no longer required to be stored, or when it is no longer valid? For instance, has a review period been defined for each piece of information?

Perform Information Management

Issues that should be considered when performing Information Management include:

• Is the information valid (is it traceable to the Information Management Strategy/Plan and the list of information to be managed)?
• Has the workflow for review and approval of information been defined to transfer information from "Work in Progress" to "Released"?
• Are the correct Configuration Management requirements being applied to the information? Has the information been baselined?
• Have the correct "tags" been applied to the information to allow for easy search and retrieval?
• Have the correct access rules been applied to the information - can users access the information that they are permitted to access, and only this information?
• If required, has the information been translated into neutral file format prior to storage?
• Has a review date been set for assessing the continued validity of the information?
• Has the workflow for review and removal of unwanted, invalid or unverifiable information (as defined in Organization/Enterprise policy, Project policy, Security or Intellectual Property requirements) been defined ?
• Has the information been backed up, and has the backup recovery system been tested?
• Has designated information been archived in compliance with legal (including regulatory), audit and information retention requirements?
• Does the Information Management system satisfy defined performance requirements - for instance, speed of access, availability, searchability?

Linkages to Other Systems Engineering Management Topics

The Systems Engineering Information Management process is closely coupled with the System Definition, Planning and Configuration Management processes. The requirements for information management are elicited from stakeholders as part of the System Definition process. What information to be stored, and when in the Systems Engineering lifecycle is defined in the Planning process, and configuration control requirements are defined in the Configuration Management process

Practical Considerations

Key pitfalls and good practices related to Information Management are described in the next two sections.

Pitfalls

Some of the key pitfalls encountered in planning and performing Information Management are:

Pitfall Name	Pitfall Description
No data dictionary	Not defining a data dictionary for the project, resulting in inconsistencies in naming conventions for information and proliferation of meta-data "tags", reducing the accuracy and completeness of searches for information and adding search time performance.
No metadata	Not "tagging" information with metadata, or doing this inconsistently, so that searches based on metadata tags are ineffective and can overlook key information.
No back-up verification	Not checking that information can be retrieved effectively from a back-up repository, and when access to the back-up is needed, discovering that the back-up information is corrupted or not accessible.
Access obsolescence	Saving information in an electronic format that ceases to be accessible and not retaining a working copy of the obsolete software to be able to access the information.
Inadequate long-term retention	Archiving information on an electronic medium that does not have the required durability to be readable through the required retention life of the information, and not regularly accessing and re-archiving the information.
Inadequate validity maintenance	Not checking the continued validity of information, resulting in outdated or incorrect information being retained and used.

Good Practices

Some good practices gathered from the references are:

• The DAMA Guide to the Data Management Body of Knowledge provides an excellent overview of Information Management, at both the Project and Enterprise level, together with detailed information on data management.
• Recognize that information is a strategic asset for the organization and needs to be managed and protected.
• Plan for the Organization's information repository storage capacity to need to double every 12 to 18 months
• Information that sits in a repository adds no value. It only adds value when it is used. So the right people need to be able to access the right information easily and quickly.
• Invest time and effort in designing data models that are consistent with the underlying structure and information needs of the organization
• The cost impact of using poor quality information can be enormous. Be rigorous about managing the quality of information.
• The impact of managing information poorly can also be enormous - for instance, by violating Intellectual Property or Export Control rules. Make sure that these requirements are captured and implemented in the Information Repository, and that all users of the repository are aware of the rules that they need to follow and the penalties for infringement.

References

Please make sure all references are listed alphabetically and are formatted according to the Chicago Manual of Style (15th ed). See the BKCASE Reference Guidance for additional information.

Citations

List all references cited in the article. Note: SEBoK 0.5 uses Chicago Manual of Style (15th ed). See the BKCASE Reference Guidance for additional information.

Mosley, Mark (ed.) 2010. The DAMA Guide to The Data Management Body of Knowledge (DAMA-DMBOK Guide),Technics Publications, ISBN 9781935504023

ISO/IEC. 2008. Systems and software engineering - system life cycle processes. Geneva, Switzerland: International Organization for Standardization (ISO)/International Electronical Commission (IEC), ISO/IEC 15288:2008 (E).

Primary References

Mosley, Mark (ed.) 2010. The DAMA Guide to The Data Management Body of Knowledge (DAMA-DMBOK Guide),Technics Publications, ISBN 9781935504023

INCOSE. 2010. INCOSE systems engineering handbook, version 3.2. San Diego, CA, USA: International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE), INCOSE-TP-2003-002-03.2

ISO/IEC. 2008. Systems and software engineering - system life cycle processes. Geneva, Switzerland: International Organization for Standardization (ISO)/International Electronical Commission (IEC), ISO/IEC 15288:2008 (E).

Redman, T. 2008. Data Driven: Profiting from Your Most Important Business Asset. Harvard Business Press, ISBN 9781422119129

Additional References

All additional references should be listed in alphabetical order.

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