Guest post by Poul Hebsgaard

What happens if knowledge workers can no longer use paper to transfer information from one desk to the next in order to execute a collaborative business process?

That was one question asked by the Danish Ministry of Transport when it overhauled its enterprise content management strategy in 2009. The solution selected went live in January 2010 with an emphasis on softer goals such as usability and end-user satisfaction (what a concept!).

While the big formal RFP was replaced by an iterative system design process involving groups of end users, traditional requirements for a case management system were still included--among them:

• Knowledge sharing and easy access to documents;
• Management of case initiation and deadline control;
• Overview of cases and case ownership;
• Version control;
• Efficient use of copying and record management resources; and
• Regulatory compliance. 

The real paradigm shift for the Danish Ministry of Transport was that project evaluation and user satisfaction became the internal metric for program success. Assessment began a little less than three months after the system was implemented.

Large BPM projects initiated from a comprehensive RFP with volumes of specific requirements--often with a focus on data and content resulting in yearlong implementation--could result in a "perfect" system, if users would use the system correctly.

However, content overload is making record managers prematurely grey! The email systems contain more data and documents than the content management system. And, often, documents never get recorded as material records.

For the Ministry of Transport it was essential that records management became a "by product" of the case management process.

It wasn't, technically, forbidden to use paper for the final review meeting before a case is officially answered. But paper was quickly outcompeted in part because all management levels were required to use the digital system for the entire case processing.

In addition to a sharp reduction in the use of paper improvements in collaboration and records management are noticeable. The incorporation of social media tools (presented as chat, stick-on-notes, etc.) in context of the case process has outcompeted email as a means of interaction between co-workers and the chat volume is far bigger than was expected.

One interesting note is that we have observed that everybody involved in a case now has full transparency--you can see what is in your boss' inbox. If he or she has asked a case worker to work overtime to get a proposed write-up done by the next morning and the case worker can see that the boss did not look at the work until the afternoon...well, maybe that manager has a problem next time he or she asks.

Transparency works both ways and it changes the culture and slowly works its way into an organization's DNA to help it work better and smarter. In March 2011 The Ministry of Climate and Energy, and the Ministry of Transport received the Digitalization Award 2011 for their implementation.

I wonder if we are going to see a similar paradigm shift in the United States?

Poul Hebsgaard is a software executive at cBrain with experience in Europe, the United States and Asia. For the last 25+ years he has been involved in startups and managed teams selling and implementing IT systems in the area of ERP, ECM, Case Management and KM. In recent years he's focused on enterprise systems integrated with E20 and GOV20 social media functionality. cBrain is listed on NASDAQ-OMX.

Related Articles:
Army to scrap its patchwork ECM system 
The indelible impact of cloud, mobile, social 
Is it time to start thinking ECM-as-a-Service?