What is Information Lifecycle Management? Information Lifecycle Management (“ILM”) is a sustainable storage strategy that balances the cost of storing and managing information with its business value.

1. Information Lifecycle Management
and Record Retention
Bonita Lewis Bell
December 2011

2. What is ILM?
Information Lifecycle Management (“ILM”) is a sustainable
storage strategy that balances the cost of storing and
managing information with its business value.
In general, there are four stages in the information lifecycle:
Creation/acquisition of the information
Publication of the information
Retention of the information
Removal of the information

3. What Drives ILM?
• Control Creation and Growth of Records
• Reduce Operating Costs
• Improve Efficiency and Productivity
• Assimilate New Technologies

4. What Drives ILM?
• Minimize Litigation Risks
• Support better decision making
• Preserve Corporate Memory
• Foster Professionalism

5. ILM at a Glance
A single global information management program that
defines the lifecycle for both paper and electronic
information. There are three primary components:
 Determine what should be kept and who should be
keeping it
 Establish how long information will be kept
 Set up a compliance program

6. It’s About the Content
Format does not determine value or retention
. . . look at the content
 File cabinets/rooms/drawers
 Off-site storage
 Email
 Shared Drives
 Intranet and Websites
 Local hard drive; handheld devices
 Storage databases
 Third party service providers

7. Record Retention Schedule
M. Purchasing Retention
Period
Official Version
Maintained By
Bids, awards,
quotations
7 years Business Unit
Contracts 7 years after
expiration or
termination
Business Unit
Purchase
Orders
--POs relating
to components
for Company
equipment
7 years after
completion
except
Permanent
Business Unit
• Information Grouped
by Category
• Retention – What to
retain
• Schedule – How long
to keep
• Owner – Who keeps
• Deviations must be
approved
• Reviewed
annually/yearly
certification
Sample Record Retention Schedule

8. Which Records to Keep
Company Information
Company Record
Official
Version
Convenience
Record
Company Information: Company information is all of the organization's tangible documents and data, whether in electronic or other
formats, that are created or acquired using Company resources and relate to the business of Company.
Company Record: Company information which: (1) serves to document the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures,
operations, or other official business of the company, (2) is deemed to have some enduring value to an organization or to comply with
legal, tax or other regulatory requirements, and (3) falls within at least one category of the Company Record Retention Schedule.
Official Version: A Company Record designated as the formal, final or primary draft to be maintained by the designated department in
accordance with the Record Retention Schedule.
Convenience Record: A Convenience Record is Company Information with temporary usefulness used for communication or
informational purposes, but not for documentation of a specific company transaction. A copy of a Company Record maintained by
anyone other than the designated department is also a Convenience Record.

9. 9
Jumpstart Compliance-- Clean Up Day
A day dedicated to organizing offices/work areas/files
• Make office attendance mandatory – Avoid scheduling
meetings
• Encourage casual clothes so employees are prepared to
clean papers, electronic files, and other items from
offices, desks, floors, computers, hallways etc.
• Provide a meal (e.g., pizza, cookie and soft drinks) if
possible – get energy behind the event
• Work with office services to have supplies available –
storage boxes/media, trash bins, shred bins, etc.

10. Monitor and Maintain
 Not a one-time clean-up, but a continuous plan for
managing information
 Annual employee certification of compliance
 Annual review of policy/schedule
 More frequent reviews for corporate changes, such as new
locations, acquisitions or mergers
 Update legal research to locate new or revised
requirements
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11. An excellent source for material about information
management and record retention is ARMA International
at www.arma.org
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