The board
The board agrees the handful of questions it needs answered every month. Not forty. About six.
Helen's journey · Lesson 1
What do we actually need to know?
Before you start
In the story
Three numbers. No answer. And the client knew first.
Back to the story
The right way: Six questions, one source each
Day one
Each question gets an owner and one source, and every new project hears about them on day one. Sites report from the programme they actually update, not a spreadsheet built for the meeting.
Next board
The client rings. Helen already knows, and says what's being done about it.
Asked on the dayThree departments, three numbers, and the client knew first.
Agreed up frontSix questions, one owner and one source each. One number at the board.
Ask this
Have we agreed up front what information the client needs from us, and what we hand over at the end?
Continue Helen's journey
Story 2: Cut it to win it
Bid review for The Glasshouse. The price is too high, and the cost plan has a line nobody's sure about.
The right way, explained
The Town Hall doesn't make information. It runs on whatever the town sends up the road. If it never says what it needs, every district sends something different, and the Town Hall picks whichever arrives first.
If you're the information manager
Help Helen write down the board's questions, then show her which project report answers each one. If two departments give different numbers, bring both, and say which source should win.
In the town See it in the town: every Town Hall asks three questions. What are the answers called?
Helen's view: every town has its own Town Hall asking its own questions. Client Town has one too.
Look inside a districtTap one on the map
Operations
- Its buildings
- Makes and keeps
- Watch out for
These are the Organisational Information Requirements!
Every organisation has them: what it must be able to show, what it keeps running and what it has to decide. The client's become the order. Ours are what we keep for ourselves.
The briefing Four lines for the board
The point
The board's questions should be decided, written down, and answered from the projects' own information.
Why it matters
Three numbers is the same as no number, and the client notices first.
What the standard expects
ISO 19650 starts with the organisation's own information requirements: the questions its leaders need answered. Project requirements should trace back to them.
Your decision
Agree the questions, and who answers each one.
For directors The organisation's information requirements, in one minute
ISO 19650 calls them the organisational information requirements. Every organisation has its own. One plain way to find them (InfoTown's, not the standard's) is to ask three questions: what must we be able to show, what do we keep running, and what do we have to decide?
The client's Town Hall answers them for its assets, and those answers become the order for each job. Ours are different: which jobs are behind, what's costing more than planned, the defects and claims we must answer, and the records we must keep.
Everything else follows from them. The information you ask for about your assets and your projects should trace back to these questions, and each project's requirements should trace back to those.
For you: nobody else can set these. If the board never decides its questions, every project answers a different one.
| Level | Asks | Set by |
|---|---|---|
| The organisation | What must we show, keep running and decide? | Every organisation, for itself: the board (you) |
| The asset | What do we need to run and maintain what we build? | The asset owner |
| The project | What does this job need to deliver, and when? | The client, for each job |
Based on the ISO 19650 series: the ideas come from the standard; the plain-English wording, examples and advice are InfoTown's. ISO 19650 is © ISO and BSI. You'll hear the same language across the industry. Read more for free in the Information Management Initiative (IMI) Framework guidance from BSI and nima. For the full requirements, use the standard itself.