Document Management: The Importance of Being Organized

Charles Borrelli is an IT Project Management Consultant in New Jersey.

Whether you’re using your organization’s operating system or one of the many available document management systems, there are still some basic best practices for keeping your documents organized and safe. This article focuses on file nomenclature (naming conventions), security, revisioning and training. All of these disciplines are important for maintaining this critical aspect of your projects. This can be an invaluable tool when planning future projects or having a “lessons learned” repository.

Getting Started: The Communication Plan
Your first step in your document management project is not necessarily the platform for hosting your documents, but what you are going to document. If your site has an effective communication plan, follow it. If not, you should work toward creating one. A good communication plan should address:

  • What gets documented
  • How often updates are required
  • Who has access to which documents
  • Revisioning
  • Retention
  • File naming practices
  • Email practices

There are many other features of a solid communication plan, but you should not spend an inordinate amount of time on this. Keeping the plan flexible and concise will probably suit your needs more than an elaborately detailed plan.

Operating System (OS) or Document Management Program
Chances are good your client already has some sort of document management …

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Published at Tue, 22 Jan 2019 05:00:00 +0000