If you attended the DLM Forum meeting in Lisbon in November 2007, you will have noticed the sense of growing excitement about MoReq2 now that it is nearly finished. As the MoReq2 project has dominated my life all year, I am certainly encouraged by everyone’s obvious enthusiasm for it.
But there was one lone dissenting voice. Rory Staunton, Managing Director of Strategy Partners, used a question-and-answer session to attack not only MoReq but also the concept that underlies it. During the session, there simply was not time to respond properly. But I feel it would be wrong to let Rory’s criticisms pass unchallenged; so…
Marc Freskos answer to Rory Stauntons comments
Hello Rory, hello Marc,
I have been at the Lissabon conference and I listend carefully to the comments made by you, Rory.
Marc, your intepretation of Rorys comments is correct and I am strongly supporting your position, Marc.
(1) The general discussion about the scope of MoReq2 was two years ago and included recommondations from quite a lot independant specialists. The scoping report was the basis for the European Commission tender for MoReq2. Rory, you even could have joined trying to win the contract.
(2) The MoReq2 Editorial Board discussed in length the scope, audience and other related topics and agreed, that the MoReq2 standard in regard to scope, content and depth is what the international record management community expects.
(3) MoReq2 is not a greenfield development but carefully incorporates best practice from MoReq1, DoD, VERS, Noark, TNA, DOMEA and other existing standards.
(4) If all comments and requirements, which were submitted by the 6 panels and more than 200 participants of the review panels, would have been incorporated, MoReq2 would have become inpracticable. So although a lot of good ideas were not incorporated, MoReq2 describes the state of art of the RM and ECM industry as well the requirements of records managers all over the world.
(5) In Germany we had a MoReq2 roadshow in 5 major cities with more than 130 participants where we conducted a small study on MoReq2. The result is, that the vast majority of the participants agrees on the importance of a pan-european standard covering not only the core of RM but as well the related application fields. The scope is right and industry representatives confirmed, that the test criteria are manageable and clear.
Yes, Rory, there are areas for further impovements,
yes, there might be a need for a chapter "0" for industries or special application areas, delimiting certain areas of the requirements (not only expanding as discussed by the DLM Forum)
yes, there might be as well a need for MoReq3 in some years, introducing new ideas and new technologies.
But there is no need for a "reduced version" or "specialized versions".
MoReq2 is the european counterpart to DoD 5015.2 and has to be as well accepted by records management professionals. To my point of view, scope, depth and details, especially in the test criteria, are well defined and adequate.
Your critique, Rory, is not only too late, but misses the point.
Kind regards,
Dr. Ulrich Kampffmeyer
Member of the DLM Forum
Member of the MoReq2 Editorial Board
Manager of the DLM Network EEIG
Posted by: Ulrich Kampffmeyer | December 06, 2007 at 09:48
Response by Rory Staunton, Strategy Partners
to an Open Letter from Marc Fresco of Serco, published on the DLM Forum Website
Let Us Build On Moreq2 to Produce Something Useful For Everyone
If you attended the DLM Forum meeting in Lisbon in November 2007, you will have noticed the sense of relief that, after six years, the developers of MoReq2 are about to produce their output. Delivery, however late, should enable the DLM Forum, RM users, and vendors to move forward in Europe to build on MoReq2 to produce EDRM standards for all. We need to move on, and address the fundamental questions so far not addressed to any significant extent by the DLM Forum and the EU:
▼ What is the purpose of MoReq2?
▼ Who is likely to use MoReq2?
▼ How can it be easily and cost-effectively exploited by the large number of government and commercial users of EDRM in Europe?
Far from one lone dissenting voice, Rory Staunton, Managing Director of Strategy Partners, raised these key issues in a curtailed “question-and-answer session” on behalf of the local authorities, central government and the EDRM vendors who have told Strategy Partners in our independent surveys that they seek simple, cost-effective EDRM systems.
These issues concerning scope and practicality have been raised in submissions since 1995 and appear to have been largely ignored by developers, who seem to have focused on developing an empirical RM super-standard without considering to any significant extent its practical application in most real-world government and commercial organisations.
The danger here is clear. Many organisations appear to be sleep-walking towards the precipice which involves specifying MoReq2 for purchases of future EDRM systems, when MoReq2 has not been designed for that. MoReq2 is a superset of functionality, not a minimum set of what most EDRM users in Europe need. So we propose that the DLM Forum should consider at the next meeting in Slovenia how we can build on the hard work that has gone into MoReq2. We should move on to investigate how it can be exploited to develop additional standards for real-world government and commercial applications. I requested in Lisbon that the Executive Committee discuss the concept of a MoReq-Lite approach, and we await their deliberations with interest.
We should acknowledge that financially, the proposed MoReq2 standard will be complex, long and costly. Four vendors suggested to me that it may cost €500,000 to develop new MoReq2 compliant versions, test them and bring them to market. That may result in future EDRM systems that could cost 30% more than those currently on the market, because they “need” to meet a set of requirements that are overkill for most applications. This will result in a complex superset of RM requirements that may result in products that can only be provided by a small number of international vendors, as development and testing (involving hundreds of test points) is likely to be too expensive for many smaller European vendors. EDRM users should not need to employ a consultant to explain to them how Europe’s new standard for EDRM works and how to meet it.
Functionally, we expect that MoReq2 will meet the needs of archivists and professional Records managers that have provided such copious input. However, we should not confuse their requirements with the needs of the large majority of non-expert users who seek guidance on what EDRM systems they should purchase in less structured and commercial environments. The process of consultation has been worthy but has extended the scope significantly since the initial requirements. MoReq2 may be fit for the purpose of large central government archival departments, but at a time when there has never been a greater need for compliance involving document content and processes, the proposed approach lacks the concept of setting a minimum set of outcomes for different classes of users. One size does not fit all.
My queries were not an attack on MoReq2 as a standard, nor the concept that underlies it. It was unfortunate that Marc Fresko saw it that way. As he stated, it has been his life for the last year and he may be too close to address some of the wider ramifications and more practical issues.
It was unfortunate that time was not allocated in Lisbon to explore these fundamental issues in more detail, so I request that this item be added to the agenda of the next meeting in Slovenia in April, where I would be prepared to provide a more detailed submission to the meeting that addresses the issues raised above, and look forward to discussing it within the DLM Forum.
Rory Staunton January 2008
Posted by: Rory Staunton | February 01, 2008 at 10:33