20th century management does not capture actual business data or provide actual business management information
Since the business is not organized today, actual business data on specific result value, specific performance solution costs, result value-added, performance solution capital worth, performance solution effectiveness, result quality, return on performance solution investments, etc cannot be captured. Management cannot be provided with one set of consistent, complete, and accurate information on the actual business.
20th century management does not organize or manage information capital
Information captured today is not related directly to the business. Information is collected against the myriad of structures laid over the business. Each structure describes the enterprise, not the business, with conflicting terminology and definitions. Different and often unrelated structures, such as the organization chart, corporate plan, business process, account chart, and scorecards, are used for organization, planning, direction, control, and reporting. Information systems report enormous amounts of information, but the information is not specific to the business or easily utilized to manage the business.
Information is not managed as capital of worth to provide specific information solutions to be utilized by the business to produce results. There is an explosion in information coming in and going out of the enterprise that cannot be referenced or indexed to the business for proper management and retention. These problem are getting worse due to 20th century management. and can never be solved through improved 20th century management.
Pieces of information capital are managed as financial accounts, knowledge, and information technology
Information capital management is piecemeal and is not managed to provide the needed capabilities to support the capital. The largest amount of managed information is financial accounts, which is the financial facility records against an account structure laid over the business. When general ledger systems were introduced, there was a push to have accountants do management accounting to analyze accounts to provide management information. This had little success in practice, since accountants generally did not have the disposition or capability to perform real management analysis. Other information is managed as knowledge, but is managed by subject or topic, rather than as knowledge to be applied to the business. Business data is often managed as information technology for access and management, rather than as actual business capital.
There is no framework to relate information to the business
The information being produced and used within the business is exploding with emails, file transfers, and Internet searches and downloads. Most of this information is managed and controlled by the user, but is part of enterprise information capital. There is no framework to reference this information to the business. Now, enterprises are laying additional structures over the business for various subjects, topics, categories, and classifications of information and investing in a variety of record, data, report, document, content, image, etc management systems. This just aggravates the problem of overlaid structures and multitude of data entities, without meeting the need to reduce information complexity and manage all information capital as an integral part of the business.
Use R-pM to manage information capital as business data, human knowledge, facility records, and management intelligence
Information capital must be managed from two perspectives:
- Support and development to provide the professional human capabilities needed to produce information solutions
- Utilization to integrate the information solutions to be delivered or accessed and utilized by the business
Information capital requires special capabilities to produce solutions needed by the business. Four specific types of information require different professional capabilities:
- Business data: Business data is information concerning the entities that comprise the business such as capital utilized, results produced, costs incurred and value created, suppliers, customers, planned time periods, business descriptors, etc
- Human knowledge: Knowledge is information used by humans to develop capabilities and to utilize capital provided in the business and to produce the results required by the business
- Facility records are tangible information capital regarding business initiatives, decisions, and activity covering all financial and non-financial correspondence, transactions, documents, records, archives, etc
- Management intelligence provides information on the business and the external business environment for management decision-making
Each category of information capital requires different capabilities to support and to develop the performance solutions needed by the business. All information produced in the business, brought into the business, or sent out from the business must be part of data, knowledge, records, or intelligence and reference a particular business date entity, particularly result or performance solution, plus enterprise or time period as needed. This enables all information to be integrated for management, access, and use by the business.
Business data manages the information about the business
Data is business information capital. The business is composed of a number of discrete entities such as results and individual result files, performance solutions and individual solution files, customers, suppliers, time periods for planning and control, and transactions. In essence, there are but a few entities that comprise the business and are updated from business transactions. Most entities maintained today arbitrarily describe the enterprise not the business, and are maintained and updated separate from business transactions. Business data is in the attributes that describe each result, solution, customer, transaction, etc. The business data entities: result, performance solution, enterprise, business descriptor for attributes of the business, and time period, are the main references to index all knowledge, records, and intelligence entering, produced within, and leaving the enterprise. A business descriptor entity is established for any information to be collected in the business, such as market, industry, etc. All other information is related to business entities and integrated with business data. Data access controls should control access to all information used in operation of the business.
Business data and all references from business data entities to knowledge, records, and intelligence must be professionally maintained using business knowledge and analytical ability. Business data also provides information support to business organization and process capital.
Human knowledge manages information needed by people to produce results
Knowledge is human information capital. Knowledge is created to assist human capital to develop and operate the business. The primary identifiers for knowledge are result and performance solution. Each development project must create knowledge needed for humans to utilize each performance solution developed and each new result produced. General business knowledge is also created concerning the business environment, future trends, and other aspects of current and future results. Knowledge is created for learning programs and self-help to develop human capabilities to produce specific results. Additional knowledge is maintained as today of on other subjects of interest to management and the business and referenced to the appropriate business data entity.
Any information that describes the business or how to execute the business for human understanding is knowledge, no matter where created or acquired within the business. Much knowledge is gained from Internet searches. That knowledge accepted for use within the business must be referenced to the business to become part or the enterprise information base and be managed as knowledge.
Knowledge requires skills in human development and work support, and supports human personnel and capability capital.
Facility records manage tangible information capital that records the business
Records are facility information capital. Records include all documentation of the business, financial and non-financial records of business initiatives, decisions, transactions, asset and property records, document imaging and retention, intellectual property maintenance, and computer and non-computer record archives. Facility records include the traditional accounting function that is redirected toward professional records management. Financial information on the full business cycle is recorded, including result value, performance costs, and capital worth that is not recorded today. Non-financial information on result volumes, quality, symptoms, etc and performance capacity, utilization, effectiveness, problems etc is recorded for full business records. Facility records include correspondence, emails, documents, files transferred, etc. regarding any business initiative, decision, transaction, or history. All facility records are referenced to and indexed by business data entities; result, performance solution, enterprise, and time period. Facility records is responsible for meeting compliance reporting and record retention regulations.
Facility records requires record-keeping experience and administrative capabilities and provides information support for facility equipment and supply capital.
Management intelligence manages management information about the business and the business environment
Intelligence is management information capital. Intelligence includes all information needed for management understanding of meaning of the current business status and the forecasted future business environment. Intelligence supports management decision-making. Intelligence includes information produced by management accounting, strategic enterprise information, competitive and business intelligence, and various information research activities. Intelligence is produced from the analysis of data and records produced internally with historic information, external research, and future projections. Much intelligence is gained throughout the business in emails, internet searches, and contacts. All information on business opportunities, threats, competitiveness, or management decision support must be accepted and managed as intelligence in the enterprise information base and reference a business data entity in closed, current, or strategic results or performance solutions, enterprise, or descriptor; such as market, industry, etc.
Intelligence requires management analysis and research skills and provides information support for management strategy and tactics capital.
Integrate information capital in an Enterprise Information Base for utilization by the business to produce results
Specific information performance solutions are produced by each category of information to be utilized to produce results. Some information like knowledge is provided to utilize specific performance solutions. Business data is maintained on each performance solution utilized, result produced, supplier, customer, etc. When advantageous, information performance solutions, such as customer intelligence, are integrated with the data maintained. In other cases, it may be preferable to integrate access to data with access to other information maintained in facility records etc by the result and solution identifier.
All information in the enterprise must reference a business date entity, and be organized as part of one Enterprise Information Base. The Enterprise Information Base is one logical base to manage all information related to the business on any server, computer, web-site, other storage media, or off-line. The thrust must be to integrate and manage all information available in the enterprise that is related to the business.
Result-performance Management (R-pM) provides the means to organize and manage information capital
Result-performance Management (R-pM) is the only way to organize the enterprise business to apply information capital to the business. R-pM also organizes enterprise capital by the capabilities required to support the capital. In this way information capital is organized for creation, development, and maintenance support and also to integrate all information for utilization as business solutions to produce results. R-pM is the only solutions to growing unsolvable problems in information complexity and information capital management.
The R-pM Toolkit, available now at result-performance-management.com. describes how to organize information and other capital for professional support and to integrate capital to produce results.
