Optimize your organisational plan

It might happen that your current organisational plan no longer meets the needs of your organisation – in which case, it’s time to revise the plan. In this article, you’ll learn:

• When should I update my organisational plan?
• How can my organisational plan be improved?
• What practical steps should I take to improve my organisational plan?

Does the organisational plan for your archive still serve your organisation’s needs and expectations? If your organisation’s operations or activities change, for instance, the organisational plan needs to evolve to accurately reflect these changes. It’s also possible that your employees and colleagues might find the existing categorisation too cumbersome or difficult to navigate.

In this case, you need to adapt how your archive is organised to ensure it aligns with your organisation’s actual operations. Optimising how the archive is organised will help your employees to archive items more easily and find them again more quickly at a later date.

This article provides a step-by-step guide for optimising how your archive is organised. While the focus here is on digital archives, the principles outlined can also be perfectly applied to physical or paper archives.

Evaluate the existing structure

The first step is to evaluate the entire shared folder structure. Include the people who use it most frequently in this process, as they will have the best insights into any issues and bottlenecks. And check whether the structure is clear to everyone who works within the relevant folders. Newcomers and outsiders should also be able to find their way around this structure. Make a note of where improvements can be made.

If the evaluation reveals that the folder structure needs fundamental changes for users, it’s best to first consult the article about drawing up an organisational plan/folder structure.

Put together a list of all the action points that emerge from the evaluation.

Make agreements about improvements

At this stage, agreements are made on how to tackle the points for improvement points identified during the evaluation. It’s important that everyone agrees with the decisions made.

One common issue is that certain documents can logically belong in multiple places, e.g. photos could be stored together in one central series, but could also be placed with the files or projects that they relate to. Determine which solution best suits your organisation’s operations and agree to implement it consistently.

Document the existing categorisation

Document the new agreements made regarding how to organise the archive. If you map out your archive as described in the article on classifying your archive and collection(s), you can incorporate the new organisational principles directly into it. Also document what the situation was like before the planned changes were implemented, so you can still reverse certain decisions if needed.

One way to document changes in your organisational plan is with the tool Folder Structure Creator, which allows you to easily convert the folder structure from your (Mac) Finder or (Windows) Explorer into a spreadsheet. The agreements made about file storage can then be added to the file. You can also document the key agreements in a simple word processor file.

Inform all current and future users

Store all documentation with agreements on organisational principles, as well as documentation about the previous categorisation, in a logical place within the folder structure, such as in an ‘Archive Management’ folder. Communicate this location to all current and future employees so that anyone can consult the documentation in case of doubt.

Systematically apply the agreements

Clearly agree on when the new agreements will be introduced. The agreements can then be systematically applied to the archive being created today. Appoint a manager to monitor the new rules and, if necessary, organise an additional meeting to raise awareness and convince everyone of the benefits of the new folder structure.

For minor adjustments to the folder structure, the existing archive can be adapted relatively quickly to comply with the new rules. This becomes less straightforward with more significant changes, such as when the entire folder structure is overhauled. You can still update your existing archive to comply with the new rules in such cases, but this can be very time-consuming and labour-intensive. An alternative option is to create a division in the archive and, for the time being, only apply the new rules to newly created archives – the old archive continues to follow the old rules. The advantage of this approach is that it makes introducing new organisational rules easier. The downside is that you now have two archives, each organised differently.

Authors: Het Firmament, Florian Daemen (AMVB)