I have lost count of the times I get asked this simple question. And it never matters the size of the organisation. Everyone struggles with what should be a simple task: save your files in the place they need to go.
The problem is that everyone has different ideas and sometimes the systems or processes associated with our file stores are complicated or onerous. How many files are saved to your Desktop or Documents folder to be filed later?
People are like water; they will always take the path of least resistance.
Surely, in 2024 we should have solved this already. I mean we have #AI and that can do some really cool stuff. So why are we still bad at storing and saving our files?
People Are Time Poor
The simple answer is that people are time poor. We need to get more work than ever completed in ever reducing timeframes. And we have limited capacity to think remember the 14-peices of metadata and the correct naming convention and storage location expected by our document managers to save these files in correct location. We have to get that report, proposal, memo, or presentation finished and sent before the deadline. We don’t have time to refer to that 50-page document that explains everything we need to know about saving files and tagging them correctly.
Just writing that paragraph was exhausting.
If it is not a priority; it won’t get done.
Unless managing how and where files are stored and how they are life-cycled through the various stages of use and value, taking care of those files is not a priority. People only have so much capacity to get stuff done. They can either good at selling your products or managing your filing structures—not both.
Should We Give Up?
Absolutely not! But we need to understand our team and where their priorities are. Then make it easier to comply with our filing structure requirements that fighting against it. How do our people work and how do we make managing files—and where we store them—super intuitive?
Step 1 – Pick a System
The first step is to determine the storage system, and related tools or apps, that your team will use. Ideally, you want to standardise on a single platform. But this is not always possible. If you must use multiple systems, them make you understand why. If you don’t, then you’ll have a hard team explaining it to others.
Pick one system and make it work. It won’t be perfect, but at least it will be consistent.
The more systems you use the more complicated you make your organisation and the less likely your team will use these systems the way you want them to.
Step 2 – Map Your Structure
The next step is to design an Information Architecture (#IA)—fancy way of saying folder structures—that matches your organisation. You want to pay special attention to who needs access to these files so you can easily grant or revoke access. And you need to think about your business partners too. You know all those other businesses and people you use to do things like your accounts, bookkeeper, payroll, marketing, sales, support, etc…
Your first iteration will be wrong. That’s ok, it’s a start. Change it as you grow.
Your top-level information architecture should have 5-10 items. These are typically aligned along the business units or functional areas of your organisation. It doesn’t matter if you are a solopreneur or multinational, then same principles apply. For smaller organisations, you can stop at the first level. Larger organisations will have to go down many levels to map out the various sub-functional areas and teams.
Regardless of what you create, it will be wrong. But that’s ok, it should be good enough and you can change it later. Don’t fret the details.
Step 3 – Build Your Structure
Now the fun bit, building your new information architecture and moving your teams and data in. Every organisation has different challenges with managing change. Some are long and complex; others are quick and simple. The import thing to making this work is to GET IT DONE!
Often it is better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission
Don’t waste time trying to restructure the data below the new high-level areas you’ve created. You will get lost in the weeds and just make a bigger mess. Cleaning that up is a problem for later.
How Does this Help?
Often the first step on the path to change is the hardest. When it comes to storing files, we need to make a hard change to then make every change that follows later easy. In the case of your people, defining key top-level structures that align with the organisation they work within means it becomes super easy for them to work out the rough location things should be stored.
If someone is working on a marketing document, then it makes sense to store that in an area call Marketing. Same goes for Sales, or Human Resources, or Accounting, or Clients, or Operations. Make that top-level super obvious. And the same goes for those sub-levels for larger organisations.
If people have to refer to a document to workout where to put things or the codes they need to add, they just won’t do it.
And we want to make sure that any information we need is either intuited based on the location or file type or even the person creating the document. Any controls for data protection, security, or retention and archiving should be implied. You’ve made it easy for them to work out where stuff should go, don’t mess that up by making it hard to save it.
Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS)
When it comes to store data and files within your organisation, you need to make it as simple and intuitive as you can. The more you can remove roadblocks for your team so they can Get Stuff Done (#GSD) the better it is for your organisation.
But here’s another team-member you might not have thought of…the machine. Yes, the very systems you use to help find content and generate new content need to understand your organisation and the information you store.
Your #AI will use your #IA to help your team #GSD; what does it say about your business?
I am of course talking #AI. These systems use your content to help your people get the work done. If your information architecture is poor or contains too much ambiguity or lax security controls, your shiny #AI robot will have a tough time providing useful response. Even worse, it may overshare sensitive Infromation you would have rather kept hidden.
Summary
Many people ignore their content structures. They just put things anywhere and worry about it later. For some they do think they a re biggenough and what they have is working ok. The problem with this strategy is that you’ll just create a bigger mess later that will become too hard to fix. Start with a simple, intuitive structure. Then build on it. Tweak and adapt as you go. But make sure you have a structure that makes sense.
Oh, and STOP keeping everything in your own personal OneDrive. Dropbox, or Google Drive. Create shared spaces and put your team content there!
