IM BLOG: Your Records Program's Insurance Policy: Why You Need a Management Playbook
Unlike traditional Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) that often gather dust in forgotten folders, a records management playbook is a living, breathing document that goes far beyond simple task lists. It's your program's insurance policy, cultural handbook, and operational blueprint all rolled into one accessible resource.
Think of it as the difference between a recipe card and a complete cooking guide. While SOPs might tell you what ingredients to use, a playbook explains why those ingredients matter, how they work together, what to do when things go wrong, and how to adapt the recipe for different occasions. Most importantly, it captures the institutional knowledge that typically walks out the door when experienced staff leave.
The harsh reality is that many organizations rely on SOPs written years or even decades ago, scattered across different systems and rarely updated. The result? A significant gap between what procedures say should happen and what actually gets done. A playbook consolidates everything into one maintainable format that reflects current reality, not outdated aspirations.
Beyond Documentation: The Strategic Value of Playbooks
A well-crafted records management playbook transforms how organizations approach information governance by delivering tangible benefits across multiple dimensions:
- Operational Excellence: Everything your records management team needs operates from one organized, accessible location. No more hunting through multiple systems or asking "How did we handle this last time?"
- Efficiency Gains: Teams save substantial time when questions arise because answers live in the playbook. Supporting resources link directly within each play, eliminating the frustrating search through numerous files and locations.
- Quality Consistency: Playbooks include references, standards, checklists, and templates aligned with organizational policy frameworks, resulting in better and more consistent work output.
- Accelerated Onboarding: New team members get up to speed quickly using a comprehensive resource that explains not just what to do, but why it matters and how it fits into broader organizational goals.
- Increased Independence: Employees can execute quality work without constant management oversight, while supervisors gain confidence in delegating because clear guidance exists.
The playbook also serves strategic functions that SOPs typically miss: identifying best practices, ensuring consistent and repeatable operations, aligning resources to common goals, and preserving critical expertise that business results depend on.
Building Your Playbook: Structure and Components
An effective records management playbook contains three distinct sections, each serving specific purposes while maintaining the document's usability and focus.
The Introduction sets the stage with brief, essential context. This includes an explanation of the playbook itself, an overview of your records management program and its organizational role, and crucial organizational context. The context section covers your organization's mission and operational environment (which shapes why plays exist), organizational culture (influencing the granularity and flexibility of plays), and defined roles and responsibilities through RACI charts.
The Plays form the heart of your playbook – the actual processes your team executes regularly. These aren't project-based activities (like selecting new recordkeeping applications) but ongoing operational processes that sustain your program over 30, 60, or 90-day cycles.
Each play follows a standardized structure that makes maintenance and expansion easier:
- Name: Uses "verb-noun" format (e.g., "Send Boxes to Offsite Storage") with organization-specific terminology • Purpose: Explains the business value and why this play exists in the playbook • Description: Provides sufficient detail for newcomers to follow without becoming an exhaustive checklist • Players/Responsibilities: Identifies primary roles and includes mini-RACI charts for complex plays • Cadence: Specifies both frequency and timing (monthly, end-of-month, quarterly, etc.) • References: Links to supporting policies, procedures, templates, standards, and job aids • Metrics: Includes quantifiable measures aligned to organizational goals, with financial metrics preferred when possible.
The Appendices house supporting materials like maturity assessments, complete RACI charts with contact information, comprehensive reference lists, and glossaries of terms and acronyms.
What Your Playbook Should (and Shouldn't) Include
The most successful playbooks focus on regular, ongoing activities rather than one-off projects or aspirational processes. Common categories for mature records programs include:
Operational plays: Capturing and filing records, digitizing paper records, responding to record requests
Maintenance activities: Conducting inventories, maintaining retention schedules, applying disposition
Governance processes: Reviewing policy documents, evaluating systems, conducting audits
Improvement initiatives: Remediation projects, change management, system migrations. Critically, your playbook should reflect current reality, not ideal scenarios or borrowed practices from other organizations. There's no value in documenting plays for disposing of legacy emails if legacy emails aren't actually being disposed of. Similarly, copying another organization's playbook wholesale ignores the unique culture, maturity level, and personalities that shape how work actually gets done in your environment.
Implementation: Making It Happen
Building your playbook starts with inventory work. Review existing documentation (SOPs, flowcharts, procedures), examine regular reports and paperwork you generate, and audit existing job aids like checklists and naming conventions. Don't forget to review job descriptions and performance reviews to identify current expectations and potential gaps.
Platform selection should prioritize accessibility and maintainability over sophistication. Whether you choose Word documents, spreadsheets, wiki platforms, or specialized authoring tools matters less than ensuring your team can easily use and maintain the resource. The best playbook is the one that actually gets used.
The building process involves you and other subject matter experts who can accurately describe current plays and their components. In smaller organizations, this might be a single person; larger programs need input from various stakeholders, including those with records management responsibilities outside the formal team structure.
The Living Document Advantage
Perhaps the most crucial aspect of playbook success is treating it as a living document that evolves with your organization. Changes in technology, legal requirements, and business processes all require playbook updates. In fact, reviewing and maintaining the playbook should itself be a play in your playbook.
When the team discovers changes impacting existing plays, someone should be assigned to update them within a specific timeline. When new processes develop, they should become new plays. This approach ensures the playbook remains the single source of truth for your records program rather than becoming another piece of outdated documentation.
The flexibility built into well-designed plays allows for adaptation when circumstances require different execution approaches, while maintaining enough structure to ensure consistency and quality. Effective leadership and management make this balance achievable without encouraging wholesale abandonment of established practices.
Your Next Step Forward
Creating a records management playbook requires upfront investment, but organizations that implement them consistently report they never look back. The playbook becomes an invaluable tool for program maturity, team development, and organizational resilience.
In an era where records and information management programs face increasing scrutiny and competition for resources, having a comprehensive, accessible, and current playbook isn't just good practice – it's a competitive advantage. It demonstrates professionalism, ensures continuity, and provides the foundation for sustainable program growth.
Your records program deserves the same strategic approach that successful sports teams and businesses use. The question isn't whether you can afford to create a playbook – it's whether you can afford not to.
Meet your blog author:
Jesse Wilkins CIP CIPP/US CIPM IGP CRM CIGO ICE-CCP
Jesse helps organisations improve their information governance in support of business outcomes, working with them to implement changes that align with their culture and operational tempo. Recognising that technology is neither the sole problem nor the complete solution, Jesse emphasises the importance of collaboration across disciplines and roles to drive lasting change.
Highly flexible and outcome-driven, Jesse consistently meets deadlines and exceeds expectations. Support can be tailored to any time frame — from short, on-demand advisory sessions to large-scale, complex projects.
An experienced speaker and writer, Jesse has delivered more than 200 training workshops globally and presented over 900 keynotes and presentations since 2003.