Case Study: Drafting a Policy on Email Records Management
This case study describes Messaging Architects' recent delivery of an ePolicy Workshop in the offices of an enterprise client. The client is a large, privately-owned construction company. Its employees are spread widely across many locations. Knowing that the company needed a policy on email records management, the IT department discovered that Messaging Architects offers policy development services. The client had not previously done business with Messaging Architects.
The client engaged Messaging Architects to conduct an in-house workshop, with Texas attorney Benjamin Wright as workshop leader. A few days before the workshop started, Mr. Wright spoke with the client by telephone so he could customize the ePolicy Workshop to meet the client’s unique needs.
Mr. Wright came to the workshop with a prepared agenda, but quickly found that the event took a life of its own, according to the interests and needs of the people in attendance. For the first two hours, the client’s employees in attendance were only from IT. They interacted with Mr. Wright and Messaging Architects representative Osman Baig to understand the issues as they uniquely apply to their enterprise. They also wanted to learn what other organizations are doing on email record retention.
The group then expanded to include the client’s general counsel, chief financial officer and other officers. The group considered litigation issues and the costs of retaining email. After lively debate, consensus began to emerge around some principles.
A core group of workshop participants then undertook to start drafting language. On the morning of day two of the workshop, an agreed draft policy emerged. The client’s CIO had what he needed. With this policy in hand, a select team, including the CIO and Mr. Wright, presented a briefing to the client’s chief executive officer.
– Benjamin Wright
Benjamin Wright is a strategic advisor to Messaging Architects.
