Solving Shared Drives: 10 Tips for Cleaning Up, Organizing, and Migrating Content in Shared Network Drives

Solving Shared Drives

10 Tips for Cleaning Up,
Organizing, and Migrating Shared
Network Drives

Barclay T. Blair and Mark Rye

© 2012 ViaLumina, Ltd. and Perram Corp.

Part 1

WHAT IS “THE SHARED DRIVE PROBLEM?”


Outdated and Duplicate Content


Defensible Deletion


Shared Drive Re-Organization
 Problem
• Organizations are drowning in files in shared/network
drives
• Don’t know: what information we have, what is important,
or what should be deleted
• All content that is not formally disposed is potentially
discoverable in litigation
 Solution
• Re-classify all files to a common file plan/folder structure
• Delete unnecessary content
• Re-organized structure makes it intuitive to find
information


ECM Migration
 Problem
• Information is not ready for migration to ECM
• Don’t want to put the old mess in the new system
• Users are not ready for information structure of ECM
 Solution
• Re-organization and disposition to prepare content for
migration
• Populate metadata
• Decouple process and technology changes


Part 2

ADVENTURES IN SHARED DRIVE
REMEDIATION


John’s Shared Drive Project
1. Who’s in charge?
2. You want to do what????
3. The policy void
4. Legal woes
5. Don’t mess with my files
6. Files without a home


Part 3

10 TIPS FOR TACKLING SHARED DRIVES


1. Don’t expect employees to do it
 They don’t like it and
aren’t very good at it
 Department drives
contain a useful file
plan starting point
 File plans require
maintenance


2. Use smart technology
 Solving shared drives is
an ideal application of
machine-based learning
 The process around the
technology is critical
 Classification schemes
require real expertise


The Future of IG?

© 2011, ViaLumina Ltd.

Barriers to Adoption


3. Create value-added metadata migrating
 Identify metadata that can be populated into files to
add value in the new system
 This will help with value realization and user
adoption


4. Align file plans with IG requirements
 Records retention in accordance with legal,
regulatory, and contractual requirements
 Privacy and confidentiality requirements
 Information security and protection
 Intellectual sensitivity management (i.e., for
protection of intellectual property)
 Preservation of content during lawsuits,
investigations, and other formal proceedings


5. Ensure users see themselves in the file plan
 Involve users in development and validation of file
plans
 Supports adoption, business, and legal needs
 Create an efficient process


6. Ensure file deletion is defensible
 Is the file potentially responsive to a lawsuit,
investigation, or other formal proceeding requiring its on
going preservation?
 Is this file unique? In other words are there copies of the
information elsewhere in the organization? If so, which
copy is the “official copy” that the organization has
decided to spend time and money managing?
 Is there a legal or regulatory requirement to keep this
file?If so, does the law or regulation require it to be kept
for a certain period of time, or in a particular format?
 Does keeping this information serve an ongoing
business purpose? If so, what is that purpose and can
you identify a time period after which the content is not
longer useful?

7. Use a big broom


8. Provide a policy foundation
 Information governance policies, providing high level
rules about how the retention, structuring, protection,
and disposition of information.
 Legal Hold policies and procedures, providing a
standardized mechanism for ensuring that information
responsive to litigation and other formal proceedings is
properly identified and preserved.
 System-specific procedures for ensuring that Information
Governance issues unique to those systems are
addressed (e.g., email, social media, backup systems).
 Retention policies and other policies that outline
requirements for the retention and disposition of
information.
 Information security and protection policies.

9. Get project governance right
 Most common point of failure
 Who has the authority to approve a file plan?
 Who can actually pull the trigger on deleting
terabytes of data?
 Who will sell the project to the most powerful, most
resistant departments?
 What is the official repository for certain files?
 Questions like these and hundreds more will need to
be answered during your project, and they cannot be
answered without clear project governance.

10. This IS a change management project
 Communicate
 Address users
 Address managers
 What happens when users cannot find a file?


Part 4

THE PERRAM APPROACH


From Complicated to Implementable
 Shared Drive Classification, Disposition and Migration
is a complicated mix of:
• Technology (du-dup, indexing, disposition processing, file map, migration, etc)
• Information Governance (What are the rules? Who needs to be involved?)
• Process (Iterative client QA on folder structure, mapping, disposition, migration)
• Change Management (tools and process to support user adoption)

 The Perrallel Process envelopes all of these areas into
proven project delivery model


The Approach
 People “The nature of this dilemma
exists because organizations
• Highly Experienced Classification are either asking employees to
do a job – some of which could
Experts be handled better by
technology – or technology to
 Process do a job, some of which is
better handled by employees.”
• Proven, Repeatable, Scalable
James Santengelo – Rise of the
 Perrallel Classify ™ Machines Nov 2009

• Unique Proprietary Facilitative
Software Suite
• Outperforms automated and
manual approaches by combining
the strengths of both in one process


Perrallel Technology
 Perrallel Classify Software
• Capture, Analysis, Mapping, Disposition Processing and
Migration
• Used by our Classification Experts
 Perrallel Portal
• The clients window into the project
• De-Dup Context and Selection
• Questions/Answers on Mapping
• Test Drive of Mapping in offline environment
• Interactive File Map for Change Management


The Perrallel Process

Phase Phase Name Activities
1 Project Design Analysis, Design, Communication
2 Folder Structure Information Gathering,
Development/Validation Development,Validation
3 Mapping File Classification, QA
4 Validation Client Review of Folder Structure and File
Mapping
5 Migration Implementation of Folder Structure and File
Mapping on Live Server(s)
6 Change Management Ongoing support of business transformation
through Perrallel Portal


The True Value of Solving Shared Drives
 Activities:
• Folder Structure Optimization
• Content Classification
• Disposition Processing
• Content Migration
 True value:
• RM Policy Implementation
• Technology Adoption


Barclay T. Blair: btblair@vialumina.com 646 450 4468
www.barclaytblair.com

Mark Rye: mark.rye@perramcorp.com 519 835 8152
perramcorp.com


Solving Shared Drives: 10 Tips for Cleaning Up, Organizing, and Migrating Content in Shared Network Drives

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