Our Mission

To lead the ministry into excellence in managing its information as a vital corporate resource.

As IRM guru Ronald Ross puts it, "Re-engineering the corporate attitude towards information".

We provide information on data modelling, data standards, access to ministry-standard data structures (via "data dictionaries") and continually try to help show the huge impact that ministry data resources have on its business.

We encourage re-use of the ideas contained within these pages, provided you acknowledge the source.

What does "lead" mean to us in the context of our mission statement?

• Be proactive, show vision, be responsible
• Show the way; by explaining and by example
• Accept the challenge of changing something to move the ministry ahead
• Guide, steer, direct, educate
• Identify opportunities and gaps
• Have influence
• Work the ministry towards our vision of shared data and managing information

What does "ministry" mean to us in the context of our mission statement?

• data custodians, application custodians, business area staff
• all individuals that we work with - primarily Ministry of Forests staff
• broad-based communications
• our focus is ministry-wide
• encourage a ministry-wide perspective in all staff, all business areas

What does "excellence" mean to us in the context of our mission statement?

• top quality
• effective and visionary business decisions
• best practices
• the best we can possibly be
• active achievements, not passive going through the motions
• aggressive pursuit of goals

What does "managing" mean to us in the context of our mission statement?

It means that every person in the ministry will:

• take action prior to a crisis
• take responsibility and show vision for information
• use resources wisely (e.g. your time, others' time, funding, ...)
• see the larger picture and act accordingly

What does "information" mean to us in the context of our mission statement?

• knowledge
• data, with context
• data is the foundation
• data -- well organized and managed -- becomes information. Data poorly organized and managed becomes misinformation
• data structures and the human thought processes that fill and use them
• business data

What does "vital" mean to us in the context of our mission statement?

• necessary for business to continue
• ministry cannot function without it
• absolute and required at any or all ministry levels
• highly important

What does "corporate" mean to us in the context of our mission statement?

• united, collectively one (hmmm, but not so much as to evolve into being "The Borg"! ...ed.)
• shared
• ministry cannot plan, understand how well (or how badly) it's doing, see (or learn from) mistakes without a ministry-wide information profile
• whole enterprise
• entire ministry/government, not just one department

What does "resource" mean to us in the context of our mission statement?

• an identified and acknowledged asset
• a powerful ally to do business
• a source of information or expertise
• necessary to function
• enormous operational value; often not measured or utilized enough
• has planning and analysis value
• is a liability when mismanaged