Document management doesn’t exist without process – it is all about the process.

A simple example…

I write several blogs weekly.  There is no one else involved in the process, just me.  However, there is a process.

I write a rough draft and perform some minor edits.  I wait until the next day and re-edit until I am happy with it.  I save it to my hard disk in a blog folder.  I date the file so that I know when it was published.  I publish the blog to a half dozen sites.

A more complex example…

While at Silicon Graphics, I was responsible for generating marketing materials.  I would still write a rough draft.  I would wait until the next day to re-edit.  It would then go to legal and to a ‘marcom’ group within Silicon Graphics.  It would come back to me for final edits.  It would go back to them for final approval and printing.

My Thoughts…

If you intend to implement a document management solution, I contend that the software must always have a process component.  It would be fairly easy to map either of these processes.  It would also be great if I could be sure that the document passed all of the approval steps before it was released or printed.

Your Thoughts…

What does your informal process look like?

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