In an era of electronic war fighting, homeland security and expanding reach of the federal government, the need to share information is vital. Currently, the 300-plus federal agencies each have their own records management program, all with varying degrees of maturity. The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) initiative is tasked with finding efficient and effective ways to manage and share information, and help federal agencies transfer their permanently valuable electronic records to the National Archives.
At the core of the multi-agency initiative was the definition of common records management services for use across all federal government agencies. Kurtz spoke of the challenges defining technology-independent records management services that have the proper precision, yet are pliable for future requirements. Keys to the 18-agency community of practice's success were requirements elicitation through modeling, Model Driven Architecture techniques and creating uniform semantics.
In addition to the service definitions, the team is evaluating a proposed Records Management Maturity Model (RM3). The hope is that agencies could use this model, if adopted, to assess their current business processes, tools and techniques to manage records and create transition plans. Kurtz pointed out that both the records management services and maturity models are envisioned as not necessarily government specific and therefore could be applicable to all industries.
Throughout the presentation, Kurtz engaged in Q&A with meeting attendees on cross-agency information sharing, funding models, MDA model formats and organizational change.
