Measuring information health: a planning and evaluation tool to support IRM practice

Most Information Resource Management (IRM) groups do not have any quantitative basis for planning, prioritising or measuring the results of their activities. As a result, the practice of IRM tends to be based on anecdotal evidence and conjecture about organisational information needs rather than hard facts. This paper describes a survey instrument, called the Information Health Survey, which was used as part of developing an Information Management Strategy for one of Australia’s largest organisations. The survey methodology was based on the approach used to conduct population health surveys. The instrument measures levels of information support (“information health status”) of information users across the organisation using a set of Information Health Indicators. Use of the instrument enabled much wider consultation than would otherwise been possible, and provided a quantitative basis for developing recommendations. It also provided a way of measuring the outcomes of the strategy over time. While the instrument proved useful in this particular case, it also provides the starting point for developing a general purpose tool to support IRM practice.