When it comes to information, start with the end.

On this tiny crowded plane to the next city in this crazy week of mine, I had to carve out a few minutes. Something came up today that I have seen too many times.

I met with a client today that is struggling with a misconception that I believe is running rampant through many organizations today. It has to do with a fundamental error in approaching the management of information and knowledge.

We have bazillions and bazillions of bits of data. (I know that is not a real number, but it makes my point.) We have more information than we can possibly deal with. It is everywhere. It comes from all directions. It catches up to us through our personal devices that we depend on for productivity and connectivity. Consider all those text messages, news feeds, facebook notifications, task reminders, meeting reminders, emails, voice mails, etc. They make your phone buzz at an almost constant rate. Information screams at us from signs on the road and through the radio. It streams constantly through our televisions – in a thousand channels and in HD. It comes from silly pop-ups on the PC I am using now. It comes from the major business systems we use to manage our day-to-day businesses and those of our clients – through notifications, reports, items in our task list, etc.

Seriously … how many in-boxes or points of personal interface do you have? I think I have approximately 15 in terms of voice mail, emails, personal sites, etc. (As a related side note … I spend more each month on connectivity for myself and my family than my family did on our mortgage when I was in high school.)

It never ends. And it is ever increasing. I remember reading something several years ago (I can’t remember where right now) which claimed that one daily New York Times contained more information today than a person would be exposed to in a lifetime just a few hundred years ago.

When I was a kid, I remember being incredibly frustrated that our family set of encyclopedias didn’t even mention the space program. They were outdated. And I thought, ‘How can I really be expected to learn anything from and use these stupid things!’ I honestly believed that I didn’t have the tools I needed. Today, my kids don’t even know what an encyclopedia is. The internet provides them an unlimited amount of information. It grows every day. And they even get to contribute to it. (The strangeness of the blog, for example, still amazes me.)

The issue for my kids – and the rest of us now - is not having access to enough information. That is a given for most of us today. The information is there. Everywhere. The real issue is knowing what information to actually use. And what information not to use. And how to use it.

Frankly … to get on top of it all … to really make sense of it … to find clarity in the dense dust of the data … we must recognize the real starting point - knowing what are we doing. It all starts with understanding what we are trying to accomplish, and therefore what data, information and knowledge that we need.

Therein lies the fundamental error of many organizations. They start with concerns for the information they have and then try to figure out what to do with it.

The fundamental error is focusing on a fascination with facts and not the need for knowing. Organizations falling into this common error find themselves struggling with massive amounts of information and data that they don’t know what to do with. They don’t know how to use it. They don’t know what to make of it. They don’t know if it is current and valid. They know it’s everywhere. They know it’s important. They know it can help them. But they don’t know how to get their arms around all of it and control it.

There is just too much of it. There are too many sources. There are too many repositories. There is too much fluidity. There is too much resistance from those that currently store it in discreet data sources and use it in their own unique ways.

And they are paralyzed.

So .. what do they do? They have to do something, after all.

The answer may sound counter-intuitive. It may sound overly simplistic. But it is the answer. In fact, it is fundamental to success.

The answer is to start with the end. And work your way backwards.

Start with first understanding what you are trying to accomplish. Start with identifying the need for information based on the purpose of the information. The need for the information – the purpose for having it – is imbedded in the achievement of a task … or a project … or a strategy … or an initiative … or a decision.

Then work your way back to the next logical question: what information do you need to do that?

Then, other appropriate questions logically follow as you broaden the scope of the inquiry to identify a broader solution:

• Where can I find it?
• How can I capture it?
• What do I need to do to it make it most usable for people that need it?

This approach ensures that organizations don’t waste time dealing with the collection, storage and management of information that is not needed in the first place. It ensures that organizations don’t focus their energy on self-defeating efforts and miss the important information that they really need. This approach ensures that gaps in information are identified and dealt with. This approach ensures that the value of information is realized in the day-to-day work of managing and optimizing organizational effort.

It seems simple, but it’s true. Start with the end.

For organizations that have them, a defined management framework or methodology can provide a context for answering the right questions and starting with the end.

• A project management methodology will help define the activities that require information for success in delivering the intended outcomes of projects, along the deliverables that will contain that information and the roles that require it.
• A software development lifecycle (SDLC) will provide a set of parameters for success in developing software successfully, including the requisite activities, processes, deliverables, etc. that require information.
• A service management framework (for example provided by the IT Infrastructure Library – ITIL) will provide a comprehensive framework for identifying, capturing, storing, transforming and exploiting data, information and knowledge to meet organizational objectives.

My suggestion is to start with the end. Now I just need to get to the end.

The point? Use the organizational strategies, methods, frameworks and processes that already exist and which define the work that needs to be accomplished. Once those are identified, work backwards.

[[ NOTE: This is the approach that is used for successful organizational learning and knowledge management as well. I would like to explore that in a future article about successful approaches to Knowledge Management.]]