Interim Findings from the People e-Delphi

The Delphi studies gather primary data from selected participants (~20 people) and develop a picture of ‘expert opinion'. The use of electronic means enables anonymous and geographically wide participation.

To date, the first e-Delphi study—for the People facet—has been carried out.

Participants responded to five rounds of questions to identify, explore, and clarify the issues of the people and human aspects of ERM, such as: vision; awareness; culture; drivers and barriers.

We have analysed the participants' responses using a range of different approaches (subject themes, numerical ratings, subjective explorations) to provide a 360-degree view of the data. We have also produced outputs in textual, numerical, graphical and diagrammatic forms to support different cognitive styles.

Interim outputs for this phase are available on the Project website http://northumbria.ac.uk/sd/academic/ceis/re/isrc/themes/rmarea/erm/diss/delphi_diss/people_dis/

These outputs take the following form:

All rounds – list of questions

Round 1 – preliminary thematic analysis of issues (text)
The participants were presented with a list of the people issues identified from the systematic literature review (see the Project website http://northumbria.ac.uk/sd/academic/ceis/re/isrc/themes/rmarea/erm/diss/diss_slr/ for the interim results from the review). They were asked to refine these issues and to add in any extra issues. These issues were then analysed to identify themes. The responses provided by the e-Delphi participants were in a rich, discursive form – a single sentence often presented complex situations or ideas. In order to ‘unpack’ the responses and break them down to units more amenable to analysis and the identification of themes, we created a controlled vocabulary of standardised terms and adapted a form of facet classification to present these terms in the context they appeared.

Round 3 – ranking of issues in terms of urgency/importance (graphs and tables)
The final list of issues were organised under groups of similar themes. The participants were asked to rank these groups from 1 to 8 (1 being most urgent and 8 being least urgent). Then, from all the individual issues listed, they were asked to select the single most urgent one to address for accelerating change in ERM. The results were analysed to give weighted numerical scores.

Round 4 – solutions to issues: approaches that work and approaches to avoid (PDF files of mind-maps, including text-only version; word clouds)
The participants were presented with a list of issues (i.e. headings that summarised the groups of issues from the previous rounds), comprising:

Issue 1: Executives and management lack understanding of records management and their role within that
Issue 2: Records professionals need appropriate knowledge/skills, approaches and relationships for the e-environment
Issue 3: Records Management and Information Management: principles and practices need to be a valued and integral part of the organisation
Issue 4: Staff, users: lack understanding of records management and their role within that
Issue 5: Implementation of ERM and systems requires change and change management
Issue 6: E-environment: has changed the nature of work and workplace relationships
Issue 7: ERM systems: need to well designed
Issue 8: Other professionals: lack understanding of records management and their role within that
Issue 10: Records/information management needs to be part of an organisation’s culture to the same extent as quality assurance
Issue 11: Integration/interoperability of ERM systems with other systems/processes is needed

For each issue, they were asked, from their own perspective and experiences, to suggest (a) solutions worth trying and (b) solutions to avoid. These solutions were thematically analysed and have been presented in two forms: (a) as mind maps, and (b) as word clouds.

Round 5 – phenomenological analyses of participant responses (text)
Phenomenological analysis (PA) is a method of obtaining subjective insights into a topic (phenomenon) by the researcher exploring it in depth using their experience and imagination. A number of these analyses also synthesise respondent responses from previous rounds. A topic is explored by considering it from a range of aspects: pieces and parts in space; episodes and sequences in time; qualities and dimensions; settings and environments; prerequisites and consequences; perspectives and approaches; cores and fringes; appearances and disappearances; clarity. (These aspects are derived from: Boeree CG. Qualitative methods: Part One. Chapter Two. Phenomenological description. Shippensburg University, 1998. http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/qualmethone.html). The topics covered comprise: