As the name Enterprise Content Management implies, these systems tend to impact all aspects of a company’s operations. Consequently, it’s important that a cross-departmental ECM project committee be formed to assist with the implementation. While your ECM solution provider will architect the system and get it up and running, your internal staff will play an important role in gathering data and creating or revising business processes.

Here are three tips for assembling a group that will get the job done.

Pick the Right People

When considering a group of people who have volunteered to help with your ECM project committee, there are certain characteristics you want to look for. Committee members should be:

• Respected. People who are respected by their peers and managers are better able to get the assistance they need on the tasks they are assigned.
• Familiar with their department’s content. Committee members can provide the most valuable input if they use a department’s document, forms, and other content on a regular basis.
• Familiar with their department’s processes. A department’s operations are as much about what happens to content as what the content is.
• Eager for improvement. Being a committee member isn’t an easy task. People who are passionate about improvement are most likely to remain committed to seeing the process through to its conclusion.
• Collaborative. Ideal committee members are willing to share their ideas and have them critiqued. And they know how to tactfully critique the ideas of others.
• Willing to defend their positions. You want participants who don’t concede too quickly when the merits of their suggestions are challenged.

Have the Right Number of Participants

It’s important that your ECM project committee is the right size. Too small and you may not get input from all areas of the company; too large and it’s difficult to come to consensus. While there’s no magic number, and your company’s size will be a factor, seven to ten is a good target range. You can, and should, get input from a larger group of coworkers on certain issues or at specific stages of the process. But your core group should remain the same.

Establish Guidelines

Once you’ve selected your members, you should make it clear that the committee is bound by certain guidelines. For example, at a kickoff meeting you should:

• Create a vision statement. At a high level, what will company operations look like when the project is complete?
• Establish goals. Whether they are objective (process orders 30% faster) or more subjective (give department members more time to handle customer inquiries), you need to document what it is you are trying to accomplish.
• Assign responsibilities. Who will record and follow up on action items? Who will craft project updates to send to staff? Etc. Knowing who will handle which tasks will help ensure that nothing slips through the cracks.

Ready to Roll

Having an eager, hand-picked team of change advocates onboard can do wonders for an ECM project. Not only will they be critical in collecting data and assessing processes, their involvement will help relieve the burden on IT for getting the new system operational. Form your committee wisely and you will greatly simplify your implementation.

About the Author

Charles Weidman is the President and CTO of Buddha Logic. Charlie has over two decades of experience in the design, development and implementation of enterprise content management, business process management and enterprise resource planning solutions. He founded Buddha Logic with the idea that well-architected digital document capture and management processes are both beautifully simple and powerfully logical. Find and connect with Charlie on LinkedIn.