With over 35 successful ECM implementations under our belt and a solid commitment to best practice and continuous improvement...we are there to guide you
Lateral Minds embraces the ECM3 Methodology (http://www.ecm3.org) and Mike 2.0 (http://mike2.openmethodology.org/wiki/What_is_MIKE2.0) as the foundation of our approach to our partnership with our clients. Our goal is to assist you on your journey, helping you to embrace change and technology and realise the value of your investment over time. We recognise that a successful ECM implementation is not just one project but a sustainable programme that address people and process as much as technology.
The ECM3 model defines thirteen maturity dimensions across three separate categories:
Human
| Business Expertise | Employee and Executive Educationand understanding of core ECM Precepts |
| IT Expertise | Ability to properly take advantage of new and incumbent systems |
| Process | Extent to which organisation has analysed its content-oriented business processes |
| Alignment | Extent of effective Business-IT collaboration, understanding and synchronisation |
Information
| Content/Metadata | Extent to which enterprise has analysed its content and metadata |
| Depth | Completeness of content lifecycle management |
| Governance | Extent of policies and procedures addressing information management |
| Re-use | Extent of realization of content re‐use opportunities |
| Findability |
Ability to find the right content at the right time |
Systems
| Scope | Relevant range of ECM functional capabilities (DM, BPM, DAM, etc.) adopted |
| Breadth | Evolution from departmental to enterprise‐wide management systems, where necessary |
| Security | Extent to which actual content access reflects enterprise entitlements |
| Usability | Application fitness to purpose |
Five separate levels are then used to determine an Enterprise’s maturity:
| Level | State | Characteristics |
| 1 | Unmanaged | The Enterprise does not formally manage content. Distributed share drives and local hard disks serve as document stores, resulting in redundant data, inability to find content, and high levels of rework and end user frustration. |
| 2 | Incipient | Functional or project driven approaches emerge to managing some subsets of content. Various technologies (e.g., DM, Collaboration) and competing/redundant products are deployed, but remain poorly used and insufficiently applied. |
| 3 | Formative | The enterprise has inventoried content and put plans, policies, and procedures in place, but remains in the process of implementing them ‐‐likely over several years. Multiple projects are underway, but risk conflict and failure in the absence of a broader strategy. Notions of information lifecycle management begin to get incorporated. |
| 4 | Operational | Content is managed pervasively throughout the enterprise—albeit in diverse systems. Applicable retention schedules have been applied to all critical electronic content. The enterprise has also figured out what content not to manage, and has made space for social/collaborative content management as well. |
| 5 |
Pro-Active | Content management functionality is available broadly as a shared service and is viewed in the context of a broader services‐oriented effort. The enterprise can procure and incorporate new content technologies (such as DAM) as needed, and plug into a flexible architecture to serve the business. Solid understanding of core information management issues and key business drivers allows the enterprise to be more agile in the roll‐out of new services. |
These are then combined into a Matrix to represent the organisational ECM Maturity model.
Having the experience of over 35 ECM implementations we know that without the strategy behind it, the project will be not be sustainable. The technology is only a small part of the solution. An effective strategy is required to deliver value from ECM.
Lateral Minds prides themselves on providing quality services, solutions and support to our clients. As such we put a strong emphasis on Quality Assurance and we manage quality in five core areas:
1) Project Management
In partnership with our customers we clearly establish the business and techinal goals of the project, the project scope, it's deliverables and methodology, the project schedule, project team, the work required and finally put in place project monitoring and control mechanisms
2) Discovery/Requirements Management
We work with our customers to ensure well defined business requirements for the project, the user and system, as well as the operations specifications that derive from the business requirements. Included in these requirements are the end user training and documentation needed to ensure implementation to the end user is effective and trouble free.
3) System Development
During our System Development Lifecycle we refer to requirements specifications and solution design and perform full System and Regression testing. During the development phase we partner closely with our customer stakeholders providing regular updates, demos and opportunities for feedback.
4) Testing and Acceptance
Testing and acceptance covers the user acceptance testing of the system, its administration, documentation and training. The testing process ensures that the product meets the requirements established and refined during the project. Testing may include:
- Unit Testing
- System Testing
- Integration Testing
- Regression Testing
- Load Testing
- Acceptance Testing
5) Implementation
Implementation covers the planning for the deployment of the solution; this may involve pilots that affirm the assumptions made in the development process, the transition of the solution form our development team to the client, business continuity and disaster recovery planning for the solution. Implementation also covers teh change management acitvies required to ensure a smooth implementation and high take up of the solution amongst those impacted
Each of these areas and the Quality Assurance acitivities associated with them vary according to the type and complexity of the project or support. All quality assurance activities compbine to meet our own internal standards adn the clients specific needs.
We ensure that quality assurance activities are identified at the beginning of the project and are included in the development of the projects scheudle and work breakdown structure to ensure that appropriate time is alloted for them.
Lateral Minds provide business and technical consulting services to clients embarking on or further developing Enterprise Content Management solutions. We work with a broad range of clients including those with:
• No previous ECM experience or implementations
• Using existing solutions that they wish to replace
Our client base ranges from Large/Medium size enterprises to small and boutique businesses. Whilst the underlying requirement for all of our clients is to implement components of ECM, the actual implementations and business environments vary greatly.
Lateral Minds recognises that one solution doesn’t fit everyone, and can work you’re your organisation to address your specific requirements. Our standardized services methodologies have been developed to ensure that solution implementations:
• Address your specific organizational requirements
• Provide quick returns on investment
• Reduce costs
• Provide opportunities for your team to up-skill
• Flexible and can be scaled up or down for each engagement
In structuring this approach we also realize that clients wish to engage Lateral Minds at different stages in the lifecycle. Some require full end-to-end support, whilst others have more specific needs, perhaps only wanting assistance with their Strategic Roadmap.
Lateral Minds consulting services cover the full ECM implementation lifecycle. Clients may opt to engage Lateral Minds for the full lifecycle or for individual components:
