At the recent HartmanEvent I presented for the first time an Information Charter that I have been working on for the last couple of years. John Mancini (AIIM) kindly picked up on it and blogged it, but in fact the Charter is a little longer than the version he published so I thought it was about time I published it myself. The genesis of the Charter was a particularly challenging project to develop an information management strategy for a major pharmaceutical company, and then having to condense it into a single PowerPoint slide for an internal presentation. Driving home from Heathrow Airport one day I passed through the village of Runnymede, which is where the Magna Carta was signed in 1215. This set me thinking about the role of a charter as distinct from a strategy.

The Intranet Focus Information Charter is set out below:

The Board of Directors are committed to ensuring that

1) All our employees are confident that they can find the internal and external information they need to
 make timely and effective business decisions that reduce corporate risk, ensure that strategic and operational objectives are achieved, and enable them to develop their careers within our company

2) Our employees can be certain that the information they find is the best and most current available.

3) Our employees know how to publish and circulate information so that it can be found by other employees as quickly as possible, and at any time in the future.

4) Our employees can take full advantage of the expertise and experience gained by past and current employees.

5) The roles and responsibilities of managers include ensuring that the information requirements of employees are addressed with an appropriate level of resource.

6) Our performance evaluation procedures encourage all employees to discuss with their manager the extent to which they either feel overwhelmed with information or are concerned that they do not have the information they need to carry out their work

The challenge I make to organisations is this. If you have confidence in the effectiveness of the information management environment in your organisation post this Charter on the home page of the corporate intranet and see what the reaction is from your employees. I have spent many hours revising initial drafts of this Charter to make sure there is no reference to technology and that it is independent of the size and nature of the organisation. It is important that it comes from the Board; information is a corporate asset.

If you have an Information Charter, or can improve on the text of my version,  I would be delighted to hear from you.

Martin White