improvement, Junaid.Tahir, Leadership, management, Professional, Strategy

By Junaid Tahir

I have observed in several organizations I interact with that respective management overlook one of the critical aspects of management that how their employees are managing data and how employees are performing day to day activities logging. I have observed that instead of centralized data management, each individual updates his/her own self-created excel file with poor formatting which prevents him for any kind of collaboration, version control, or advanced report generation. The issue becomes more prominent when the data becomes bigger and bigger over the course of time. Due to disorganized data management approach, the managers of these companies are under consistent crisis. This is where Documentation Management System plays vital role. So let's understand this in more detail:

A document management system (DMS) is a controlled system used to track and store electronic documents, records and other activities of the organization. It is usually also capable of keeping track of the different versions modified by different users (history tracking).

Why Documentation Quality is important:

o Correct, Complete, Current and Consistent Information is critical to business success.

o Team Collaboration so that all teams can work in sync with each other.

o Reference for Management: Sr Managers can see high level reports at any point.

o Error Reduction: Multiple people can identify possible typo mistakes.

o Risk Identification. High End Analysis with support of Micro Level Records.

o Seamless handover to new team or when any employee goes on vacation.

Key Features of DMS:

o Always up-to-date: All team members to keep it up-to-date to ensure fresh data.

o Transparent & Clear.

o Professional Naming Convention to identify the purpose of the database/document.

o Version Control (Approve, Review and Update Control

o Dynamic Summary Generation (General & Specific Reporting)

o Symmetric & Uniform (All teams should follow same pattern/format) for off-line

o Automatic Work Flow.

o Control on Multiple Record.

o Control on Missing Record (Base Line Reference)

o Change Control (What was changed, when, why, how and by whom?)

o Risk Management Report Automation (Risk Assessment and Risk Control) – Automatic Pivots and graphs to highlight critical risks, delayed milestones etc.

With these points I believe you can develop a concrete database management system for your organization. If you would like to seek advice, feel free to drop me a line and I shall be glad to help you with J

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