City of Richland – InfoWorld Top 100 IT Projects Recognition

 

The City of Richland, was recognized as a top IT project for 2009 by InfoWorld!  Every year, the InfoWorld 100 Awards celebrates 100 IT organizations that have implemented and integrated technologies in innovative ways in pursuit of concrete business goals.  

“The City of Richland streamlined its operations, launching an ECM initiative in partnership with ImageSource, integrating technology from Oracle, ABBYY, Cardiff, and ImageSource ILINX to automate workflow and transitioning the city away from paper-based processes.”

I am so pleased to have had the opportunity to have been assigned as the ImageSource Project Manager for this.

The project went smoothly from start to finish. We were fortunate to have been able to work with a project manager from the City of Richland who had been the project manager for the previously completed ECM implementation at the City of Kennewick. Having had a great working relationship and understanding of business processes already established helped move the project along efficiently and effectively. It was especially evident and proven to be most effective during the discovery and solution design stages of the project.

As in all projects there were some hurdles and obstacles to overcome. During the project execution phase the main architect of the solution had moved on to another position and we also had a new Assitant City Manager come on board. The new Assistant City Manager eventually took on the project management role for the City. The project continued on without missing a beat.

Because we use a well documented methodology, a well documented project plan, and we have exceptional people, the transition to a new systems architect and a new City project manager was near effortless. The systems engineer had a clear picture of what needed to be accomplished and the new Assistant City Manager was able to quickly grasp the solution and what business needs were being addressed.

It all goes to having excellent people around you and a great plan!

Al Senzamici, PMP
Program Manager
ImageSource, Inc.

  

Putting Together an ECM Project Team

Part 1 – Getting Started

From a user organization perspective, constructing an effective ECM Project Team needs to be on of the initial mandatory objectives and activities undertaken when implementing an ECM Project.  Achieving this objective in its totality directly links to the success of the implementation of any major ECM project within an organization – whether it be for a phased enterprise or a departmental initiative. 

Achieving this objective is a management challenge that must be supported at the top.  It requires Executive leadership that should initially lead to developing:

• an organizational vision
• clear and consistent motivation
• full mid-management support
• staff commitment at the user level that supports the executive sponsored vision developed by a qualified Project Team. 

With the above being understood, in an instance where the initiating champion of an ECM Project has a mid-level management role, that person needs to acquire an appropriate and committed executive level sponsor. 

In a typical scenario there initially needs to be a management level person(s) involved as project sponsor(s) who would likely be a department/division manager or line of business (LOB) manager.  As indicated, this person needs to acquire the active support and sponsorship of executive level management.  This could be a VP of Operations or the Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the organization. 

The first sponsor tasks are to:

[1]   Develop and document the initial premise of the ECM initiative.

[2]   Select and organize an effective team of Project Team members who will work together with the sponsors to fully define and refine the project vision, and develop a strategies to plan the details and bring the project to fruition. 

The people selected for the Project Team, their planning and collaboration skills, their ability to understand the underlying concepts of both the change management and technologies necessary to implement ECM, and their ability to communicate effectively are going to be as important to the success of the ECM Project project’s success as the software, supporting expert resources, and project implementation team solution that is ultimately selected.

The successful ECM project will likely have new business processes implemented, improved workflows, integrations with existing systems, and will require changes in the way supervisors and users do their work.  The successful Project Team will be realistically creative, and individuals as Team members need to be open in their communication of ideas and the challenges to be faced.
_________________________________________________________________________________

This blog will likely continue on this subject – with future installments discussing the recommended makeup of the Project Team members, the considerations that need to be covered, utilization of supporting partnership resources, and some recommended methods that should be considered to achieve implementation objectives.
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Neil W. Lindsey, ECMΜ, CDIA+
Project Manager / Senior Business Analyst
ImageSource, Inc.

 

  

Brainstorming

The main objective of a brainstorming session is to gather ideas from all participants without criticism or judgement. A successful brainstorm session allows people to be as creative as possible without restricting their ideas in any way. It is a “free form” method which generally promotes excitement, equal participation, commitment to decisions, and great solutions to problems. I have recently been involved in a few brainstorming sessions and it appears that many people are unaware of or have forgotten the technique.

Some basic rules to follow for brainstorming:

1. Identify a facilitator to enforce the rules
2. Identify and agree on a selection process
3. Have someone who will write down or document the ideas (pausing only for clarifying a response).
4. Clearly define the subject/problem of the brainstorm. This is often done in the form of a “how, what or why” questions. Example, “What are the best possible ways to train our customers on the new product release in the next month?”
5. Allow the team some time to digest the question.
6. Allow the group to call out their ideas. Don’t hold back any ideas.
7. Have the facilitator ensure that no discussion or rejection of ideas occurs. Not even “moans and groans”. Keep moving on to the next idea…

Once the idea collection is complete you can then move on to the discussion and clarification phase. All ideas should be presented back to the team and the facilitator should ask for any questions regarding the list of items. In many cases the person who submitted the idea can answer the question but further clarification and definition could come from other team members.

After the questions have been answered attempt to condense the list as much as possible. Some ideas may be able to be combined. However, if the originator of the idea does not agree that their item should be combined and believes it is different then leave them separated.

You can now have members rank order or weight order the  ideas by a variety of methods. You can have them provide point values to each idea (1-10, 10 being best). The facilitator can tally them up. The idea or ideas with the highest values can be selected as the top choice or choices. Or, they can rank order the ideas and you can summarize the tally based on rankings. Use whatever method works best and is agreed upon by the team.

If the team agrees with the item/s that got the highest values or best rankings then you may be able to end the discussion and the team will then decide on next steps. If members do not agree, then further discussion will be needed to reach consensus on the ideas to be used or put forward.

Al Senzamici, PMP
Program Manager
ImageSource, Inc.

The Value and Role of Mentoring in Teams

As Project and Program Managers, we are leaders. Certainly within our teams, but often within our organizations as well.  Ideally, if we’re doing it right, our influence is also felt beyond our immediate sphere.

Almost everyone knows or has an idea of what mentoring is.  Not everyone has had the advantage of having a good mentor, or the privilege and responsibility of being a good mentor.  Consider these thoughts on mentoring in the context of leading and developing project and program teams.

• Mentoring contributes.  It contributes to the individual being mentored, it strengthens the organization that you both belong to, and it often benefits the person mentoring in intangible but meaningful ways. It’s the right thing to do for the right reasons.
• In the constantly evolving, educated and highly skilled world we operate in, people will come and go in organizations as their careers grow and develop. This is not a reason to not mentor them.
• Mentoring can center around hard skills and soft skills.  Often it is the mentoring on soft skills that facilitates the most significant growth in an individual.  Hard skills can be taught in classes if necessary. The subtleties of soft skills (understanding what matters and what doesn’t, and how to apply that in tactical managment strategy, in business or in life) can’t.
• Mentoring is not about doing things for people and thinking they will learn through the exercise.  It’s about sharing insight, sometimes resourcing them, supporting and nurturing them, and then getting out of the way.
• It’s OK for those being mentored to struggle and even fail at times.  It’s often when things are difficult that growth occurs. Many times mentoring simply takes the form of continued encouragement and belief in the individual being mentored.
• Show that you value the time of those mentoring you by being concise with your interactions with them, listening and applying what is learned.
• We as leaders are never too old, too experienced, or to knowledgeable to be mentored. Opening ourselves up to and considering the ideas of others is one of the most meaningful ways that our experience can be leveraged to the benefit of our teams and organizations.

Mentoring can make a huge difference in the effectiveness and cohesiveness of your teams and your organizations.  It’s all in what you put into it.

Gene Eckhart
Program Manager
ImageSource, Inc.

  

ECM Best Practices – Green Support

Enterprise Content Management Solutions
– Remote and Mobile Employees

Many of today’s business discussions revolve around the fact that providing select employees with the ability to work from home, in a mobile environment, or otherwise more independently, is a positive factor towards fostering conservation and a “GREEN” initiative.  Considering the integrated component benefits of a well conceived and implemented Enterprise Content Management System (ECM), with the right employees selected for a remote work environment, this green initiative can also promote a highly efficient and productive business environment.

Employees that successfully work from home or on the road as much as they do in the office are likely characterized by desirable core competencies.  This is nothing new and these strong employee qualities have always been required of the person working independently from constant co-worker and management relationships and support. 

Successful remote employees are oriented towards achieving results, and as such, as a group they can be described as being self-motivated, self-disciplined, and as self-sufficient as their supporting infrastructure will allow them to be.   “Remote” employees very often maintain a strong client focus and spend a lot of time working at client sites, communicating with clients, and seeking new clients. 

In order to give the successful remote employee the best opportunity to be as productive as they can be, and promote an organization’s green initiative,  that organization can develop the information management and communications infrastructure that fosters collaboration and information self service.  This also prepares an organization to address the current business trend towards more remote employees.  This developed business structure can also support instances where employees are able to work, but have to do that work away from the office due to illness, convalescence, family emergency, transportation problems, etc.

In addition to the infrastructure, it is important to implement a training program so that these resources are known to the remote employees and they are well trained in making the most of them.

The following are among those driving guidelines that support effective mobile and remote employees:

• Digital information and content are increasingly pervasive and require well developed broadband technologies and services.  Remote employees must be provided with required independent information access and research needed for commercial, client, and business awareness.  ECM Benefits contributing towards a green initiative and remote employee support include:
  • ECM – Customer and business information access through web based document and image management
  • ECM – Research and document re-purposing through web based document management
  • ECM – Work and transaction processing continuation through web based workflow processing
• Group and teamwork oriented communications channels are instrumental to effective and collaboration between the remote employee, clients, co-workers, and management, and to providing effective remote presentation resources.  Integration of Collaboration Management and web based meeting services with compatible ECM systems provides a productive team environment contributing to a focused energy and natural resource conservation effort.
• Businesses (and individuals) must effectively communicate on the move and be supported by personal mobile communication technology and web services.  Personal mobile devices now provide a technology that not only communicates between people, but also communicates information to people using compatible web based Enterprise Content Management systems.
• Data submission and resolution tool resources allowing for information communication and independent problem solving must be provided to the remote employee dependent upon business type and objectives.  Digital Forms Processing and Management systems, a major component of many ECM systems, can provide effective solutions.

Neil W. Lindsey
Project Manager / Senior Business Analyst
ImageSource, Inc.

Attend the following GREEN oriented sessions at
NEXUS 2009, November 2nd, 3rd, 2009, Bellevue,
Washington

Finding the PR Value in your Green ECM Technology
Reducing Your Organization’s Cost and Carbon
Footprint Through Inter-Office Scanning
Economical & Environmental Benefits of eForms

Managing Project Teams – Guidelines for Giving and Receiving Feedback

Guidelines for Constructive Criticism/Feedback

In the course of managing our projects there comes a time in our personal interactions where the project manager will have to provide feedback and may even have to say something negative to the person they are dealing with. There may also be the case where they have to say something negative to say to you. I prefer to call it constructive criticism/feedback rather than negative but many people refer to it as negative. You may find that many people become embarrassed, distressed, and even angered by this criticism/feedback. Too often relationships can become strained and work can even be disrupted. However, there are some people who are able to transform these moments into opportunities for success. They are able to take this information and enhance their work skills, relationships and continue to advance, develop and grow professionally.

The Guidelines:

1.       Acknowledge the need for criticism/feedback

It is the main way to know what things need to improve. It is vital to the success of the project team and its members. Giving and receiving criticism/feedback should become the “culture” of the project team.

It is very important that the team should agree that giving and receiving feedback is an acceptable part of how you will work together and continuously improve as a team.

 2.       Provide both positive and negative criticism/feedback

“Catch” people doing things right as well as when something goes wrong. Reward and remember to tell people when they are doing things right. You want that to continue. People will be more receptive to your negative comments if they have also been accustomed to your positive comments. It shows that you are truly trying to work towards improvement.

 3.       Understand the context

Before proving feedback be sure you review the actions and decisions that led up to the event that you will be providing feedback on. Understand the circumstances completely.

 4.       Know when to give feedback

Determine when the moment is right. Are you ready to give the criticism? Is the person ready to hear it?

Do not give feedback when:

• You don’t know a lot about the circumstances
• You don’t care about the person or will not be around long enough to follow up on the aftermath of your feedback
• The feedback, either positive or negative, is about something the person does not have the power to change
• Your purpose is not really improvement
• The time , place, or circumstances are inappropriate, i.e. you are angry or others are around

5.       Know how to give feedback

Use a tool like:

When you [do this], I feel [this way], because [of such]. What I would like you to consider is [doing X], because I think it will accomplish [Y]. What do you think?

Example:

When you are late for meetings, I get angry because I think it is wasting the time of other team members. I would like you to consider finding a way to better planning your schedule so you can get to meetings on time. This way our meetings can be more productive and we are not wasting the time of others. What do you think?

• Be descriptive - give specific examples
• Don’t use labels – avoid labels like unprofessional, irresponsible, and immature. Describe the specific behavior and drop the label.
• Don’t exaggerate - To say “You are always late for deadlines” may not entirely accurate.
• Don’t be judgmental - Don’t use words like “good”, “better”, “bad” or “should”. You don’t want to appear to be in the role of a parent.
• Speak for yourself – Don’t refer to absent or other people. Don’t use comments like “a lot of people here don’t like it when you….”
• Talk first about yourself, not the other person - People become defensive with that usage. Use phrases like “I feel annoyed when you are late for meetings” rather than “You are frequently late for meetings”.
• Phrase the issue as a statement not a question – Use statements like “I feel annoyed when you are late to meetings” rather than “when are you going to stop being late for meetings”. Most people become defensive and angry with a question. The use of an “I” statement implies “I think we have an issue we must resolve together.”
• Restrict your feedback to things you know for certain – Speak of what you have seen and heard not what you feel and want. Don’t present opinions as facts.
• Help people hear and accept your compliments when giving positive feedback – Some people tend to feel awkward about positive feedback. Reinforce positive feedback even when the person says “it was no big deal”.

 6.       Know how to receive feedback

There may be times when you will receive feedback from someone who does not know the guidelines. Help your critic provide the feedback by asking “What did I say or do to dissatisfy you?” then take it from there.

When reacting to feedback:

• Breathe – Taking full deep breaths forces you to relax and allows the brain to stay alert.
• Listen carefully – don’t interrupt. Don’t discourage the criticism.
• Ask questions for clarity – ask for specific examples if you don’t get them.
• Acknowledge the feedback – repeat back what you heard in your own words so the person knows you understood.
• Acknowledge valid points – agree with what is true and what is possible. That does not necessarily mean you agree to change the behavior.
• Sort out what you have heard – you may need to take some time to sort out what you have heard before responding. Check with others if needed. However, don’t use this as an excuse to avoid the feedback.
• Don’t be defensive – take the feedback for just what it is feedback. Do not try to defend or justify yourself on each point. Again, just listen.

Al Senzamici, PMP
Program Manager
ImageSource, Inc.

Mister Rogers and Project Management

Once in a great while a speaker tells you something that sticks with you, and really helps you improve your game. Several years ago at a Project Management Institute dinner I heard Carl Pritchard tell a story that has helped me many times.

Early in Carl’s career he had a job hosting a local radio show. He periodically interviewed writers hawking their books. Now, authors can be egotistical individuals with a need to be pampered. Before the interview Carl would go through a routine to make sure that they had their drink, a comfy seat, and whatever other “strokes” they needed to be happy.

One day he was interviewing none other than Fred Rogers—that’s Mister Rogers to most of us—who was on a book tour. Carl was prepared to be unimpressed. I mean, how uncool is it to be a radio show host in your twenties interviewing the host of a sappy kiddy show?

When Fred Rogers came into the studio to get set up for their 45 minute interview, Carl started going through the process of making sure he was taken care of: “Here’s your seat, Mister Rogers. Can I get you something to drink, Mister Rogers?”

At this point, his guest stopped him. “Carl,” said Mister Rogers, “I’m fine. My concern is what you need. My question is where would you like to be in forty five minutes?”

He had asked a question that cut to the core issue and showed his empathy: What is it that you need during the course of this interview?

Carl was taken aback by this question from Fred Rogers. For the next few minutes they discussed what the host would like out of the interview, rather than pampering the guest. The interview that Carl had been unexcited about, went very well. At the end of forty five minutes he was genuinely sad to see his new friend, Mister Rogers, leave. You can bet that Carl’s tone about Fred Roger’s book during the interview was much more positive than if he had gone in with his initial attitude.

Now imagine that we applied the Mister Rogers principle to these situations:

• A Project Planning Kickoff Meeting where the Project Manager asks various stakeholders: “Where would you like to be at the end of this project?”
• An early sales call where the Account Representative asks the prospect, “Where would you like to be at the end of this process?”
• A contentious call with a customer over a problem where the tech support representative asks, “Where would you like to be at the end of this call?”

You may not be able to take the customer exactly where they want to be, but if you hear it in their words you have a much better idea of their target and can work toward reaching it. Not to mention just asking the question lets the other party know that you do have their interests in mind. If you don’t ask, you’re guessing at what they truly want and they’re wondering if you care at all about their needs.

I’ve found this tool to be particularly useful in defusing conflict during a project. If I stop a contentious discussion, and ask “Where would you like to be….” I can get to the core of the matter and try to work out a solution that meets both the needs of the project and the needs of that individual. At the very least, I give them a chance to air their concern.

As Carl Pritchard illustrated in the story about his experience interviewing Fred Rogers, if you want to have a beautiful day in your own neighborhood, stop and ask the question, “Where do you want to be?”

Guest Blogger Dennis Brooke is a former Program Manager for ImageSource and Optika. He currently manages systems development for Naverus, a leading edge provider of performance based navigation services for the aviation industry (www.naverus.com). He will be speaking on Enterprise Web 2.0 and Project Management at Nexus 09 (www.nexusecm.com) Nov. 2-3 in Bellevue, Washington. Reach him at dennis.brooke@comcast.net.

  

ECM Best Practices: Training – How much is too much, how much is not enough?

How much is too much, how much is not enough?  That is the proverbial question. Often times when project budgets are being developed, training is a secondary consideration. Sometimes it’s not considered at all.  When you’re working with customers helping them to determine what kinds of training and how much should be included, the first thing should be clearly identifying what your objectives are (and qualifying them with the most affected stakeholder – the end users). At times you will find the answer to that question to be very different coming from the project sponsor vs. the End User management team, vs. the End Users themselves. Your ‘objectives’ often transcend the simple task of selecting classes. Hence, the need to clarify with all of your stakeholders…

First, who are your stakeholders in training?  The End Users are obvious.  What about Team Leads?  IT Support (i.e. desktop support, server support, and help desk)? Application Support (administrative and end user)? Change Management teams? What about your Project Sponsor? The list can go on and on.   How much is too much, how much is not enough?

Second, what are your budgetary constraints? Within your project budget, you may have a line item for training, or even a separate line item for training for different phases of the project. This is the money originally allocated by the sponsor. How that money is spent may be rigidly defined, or it may be simply a line item budget number to be used at your discretion. With a little probing, you may be able to determine that ‘other monies’ are available from different budget codes or cost centers (unrelated to the project) that can also be used in a discretionary manner by the department managers. In those cases, with a well thought out justification, you may be able to pool that money in addition to what’s been allocated to the project to increase your available funding for training. In the case where you have line items for training for different phases of the project, close examination and analysis may reveal that there is an imbalance in the amounts allocated for some areas. Understanding that demographic need and the spread can help you level the available funds in other areas or phases of the project where you are deficient in the amount of money needed to support those particular initiatives.  How much is too much, how much is not enough?

Third, what are your logistics and operational contraints?  Training requires time and resources. Staff time, training rooms, systems\application environments, etc…  To train people, the traditional model involves taking them out of their work environment, putting them into a classroom, and running them through a curriculum based program that will orient them to the new systems and sometimes to the specific processes or application used in their jobs.  Point being you are taking people away from their jobs which directly impacts the organizations ability to do business. How do you compensate for that from an operations perspective?  Do you need to compensate for that from an operations perspective? When you’re trying to implement training in large organizations, these challenges become even more daunting.  How much is too much, how much is not enough?

Fourth, what are your timelines?  The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry…  I’m not sure that when Robert Burns penned that famous quote, he wasn’t thinking about project planning, schedules and interdependencies, but he could have been!  You can develop the most comprenhensive training plan possible, taking into consideration every possible need. Then you start to consider the functional dependencies required to pull that off (i.e. availability of systems, availability of facilities, etc…), the personell logistics (availability of staff, availability of trainers, availability of technical support, etc…), and the human factor (how much time will elapse between training, testing and GOLIVE when people will have to use the system) and you start to realize that you have created a monster. How much is too much, how much is not enough?

 Now, how does this all play out in the context of your objectives?

Stakeholders – You have to address all of them.  You don’t necessarily have to deliver to all of them. As quickly as possible assess what their critical functional needs and requirements are in relation to training. Be careful to note the difference between ‘nice-to-haves’ and ‘must-haves’.

Budgetary Constraints – Make a short list of the ideal classes and training Deliverables you would provide in a best case scenario. Ball park cost it and compare to your ‘nice-tohave’ and ‘must-have’ lists from your stakeholders. Identify the gap if one exists. Prioritize the stakeholders in the context of functionally (and successfully) completing the project.

Logistics and Operational Constraints – Now review your operational capability and capacity for delivering the training.  Do you have the required classrooms, computing resources and the application environment to deliver to the volume of people that need to be trained.  Even if all of those people can be spared from their jobs for the time it will take to train them, is it really necessary to pull all of them to accomplish your functional objectives?

Project Timelines – Now that you’ve considered your stakeholders requirements, budgetary constraints, logistics and operational constraints, consider your overall project timelines. Will your systems be online and functional in the appropriate time frame to be used for training.  Will tapping these systems for training impact other scheduled activities (i.e. development, system integration testing, user acceptance testing, etc…)? Can training be combined with other scheduled project activities in ways that create synergy and efficiencies in overall project execution? How much time will elapse between training and when you will count on users to participate in testing and actually take the system live?

Conclusions

1. The blue sky approach is that everyone will want training and as much as they can get. The reality is that you will almost never have the budget, available resources or the time for that, even if you can tap those outside-of-the-project discretionary departmental budgets. It’s up to you to ascertain what is really required to successfully launch. Typically it’s the end users, and some mix of application administration\desktop  support. This is where you engage the Project Sponsor and potentially the clients Project Director to help set expectations with the various stakeholders on what will be delivered. This is also where Change Management comes in. Help the client to understand the need that change management addresses, and suggest  creative ways that change management techniques can help to address the training of future hires and the additional training of people not included in the formal project training.
2. As an alternative to training everyone, consider ‘organic approaches’ that leverage departmental super users for propagating training within their departments. This approach done properly can also yield a secondary benefit of producing ‘product evangelists’ within the department that will culturally promote the use of the system from within. The production of computer based training (CBT’s) for training of the masses can also be a very cost effective alternative when largely repeatable tasks come into play. These can be produced much more cost effectively with current productivity tools than could be done even 3 to 5 years ago.
3. However you deliver your training, it will be more effective if it is delivered just prior to when users will be required to use the system. Typically this should be just before test, and then test should be immediately followed by the launch so that users are using the system while the skills and concepts developed in training are still fresh in their minds.

How much is too much, how much is not enough?

The short answer is that more is not always better. Users need to be able to do their jobs, nothing more, nothing less. We want to deliver the best solution, but we have to remain focused on our core objectives. If informal training with ‘Cheat Sheets’ at the users desktop is sufficient, go there. If it requires multiple language translations of End User Manuals and CBT’s with customized voice overs, go there. It’s about the right solution in the right place for the right people at the right time. It’s your job to understand and articulate what ‘right’ is.

Gene Eckhart
Program Manager
ImageSource, Inc.

Quality Management Within the ECM Project Plan

For every major ECM project being defined and planned, a Quality Management Plan should be included within the Project Plan and consider that:

• Quality planning can be, and is usually closely related with aspects of the Risk Management Plan.
• Quality planning does define the aspects of the project to which quality standards apply and how to measure and report on compliance.  Benchmarking will be accomplished in accordance with realistic expectations and the customer/stakeholder’s requirement that benefit analysis or ongoing metric comparisons be provided outside of or within the purview of the Project.
• Quality assurance is included as an application of the Project Plan to assure that an analysis of where standards apply is actually accomplished according to the processes for Quality Assurance that are identified in the Project Plan. 
• Quality control is reflected in the process used in the monitoring of project results at key points within the project and/or at relevant points within each Deliverable as appropriate. 
• Some monitoring is constant and in compliance with professionally established practices.   The actual monitoring activity, along with reporting and meetings, is planned and critical activity junctions are considered for specified attention.   Monitoring processes are closely tied with the “Communications” Plan so that a the internal customer or external organization’s Project Manager and team is apprised of project status as pre-planned or as is prudent.

Neil W. Lindsey
Project Manager / Business Analyst
ImageSource, Inc.
See me at Nexus 2009

  

Centralized or Distributed Document Capture?

Centralized Capture
In the past, a centralized document capture model was effective, with all documents entering the system through a central mail room where they were scanned, indexed with associated metadata using workstation client software and stored in a central repository distribution for later retrieval.

Advantages
• Currently the most common capture strategy and the incumbent in most organizations

Disadvantages
The efficiency of centralized capture model erodes as companies add satellite offices and increase numbers of home office and remote users located in disparate locations.
• Prohibitive cost of sending documents to a centralized locations form from remote locations
• Risk of lost or damaged documents in transit
• Reduced or no security control
• Documents are not accessible to the enterprise until received processed by central location.

Distributed Capture
Distributed capture allows immediate capture of documents and associated metadata to the backend image repository from remote locations or users.
Some providers that currently offer Distributed Capture are; ILINX, Kofax, Captovation, AABBY & Cardiff.

Advantages
• Capture documents from remote locations anywhere in the world
• Eliminates prohibitive costs associated with sending documents to a centralized capture location
• Reduces risk of lost or damaged documents
• Documents instantly accessible for retrieval and viewing by the entire enterprise
• Reduces load on centralized capture facility

Choosing a Distributed Capture product that uses thin-client (Web) user interface with centralized administrative control adds even more value to the solution. As an example the ImageSource ILINX Capture product offers the following:
• Thin-client platform is easy to deploy & maintain
• Requires minimal training
• Scalable as your organization grows
• Low total cost of ownership
• No page count licensing
• Supports distributed & centralized environments
• Streamlines business processes
• Improves accuracy of information delivered
• Image enables line-of-business applications
• Extends capabilities of ECM systems
• Quickly and securely incorporates extracted information into document management, production workflow and your line-of-business applications
• Allows for significant labor cost savings
• Reduces costs associated with paper including shipping and tracking lost documents
• Configurable based on user needs; they see only what they need to see
• Allows access to any user on your network through Internet Explorer
• Captures from a variety of sources
         o scanned paper
         o faxes
         o email
         o multi-functional devices
         o electronically created documents
• Handles scanning of low-high volumes
• Advanced indexing & validation processes, including data base look ups to assist in accuracy
• Images automatically cleaned & enhanced
• Comprehensive, server-side Automated Document Processing technology automates extraction & classification of data
• Easy-to-understand, graphical user interface
• Easy-to-Manage workflows
• No code required to deploy workflows
• Enables monitoring of various processing activities
• Allows you to define business rules & automate decisions
• Provides audit trails & logging information
• Delivers processed data into variety of back-end systems: databases, workflow, EDMS, email & ECMs

Disadvantages
• None noted

In Brief
Adding Distributed Capture to an organization’s “capture tool belt” provides significant benefits, either in addition to their existing centralized capture system or as a full replacement.

Robert Hughet, PMP
Senior Project Manager
ImageSource, Inc.