Records Management Governance Plan

This governance plan outlines a disciplined governance framework for managing information assets across the enterprise. It defines a governance structure with a cross-functional committee that includes an executive sponsor, project owner, IT, Legal, a records manager or chief records officer, records coordinator, records liaison officer, and information stewards. With clear executive sponsorship and stakeholder support, the governance committee or governance council oversees content stores, systems, and departments to ensure regulatory compliance, data privacy, data protection, and risk management aligned to generally accepted recordkeeping principles and ISO 15489.

The plan organizes standards, policies, training, and maintenance practices into a program integrated with audit and monitoring. It directs the records management office to document retention periods, SLAs, backup, disaster recovery, and metrics and KPIs for continuous improvement and program maturity using a maturity model, such as a records maturity model or privacy maturity model. A records committee charter can formalize governance objectives, roles, and escalation paths. Records center operations and records center storage are addressed, along with readiness for compliance audited activities and records audits.

Operationally, the plan enables a full records lifecycle and data lifecycle: records classification and data classification, records series and records schedule adherence, document management and access controls, and role-based access controls. It promotes a document retention policy with a records retention schedule or records control schedule, statutory retention, retention and disposition, disposition schedules, defensible deletion, and a clear chain of custody. It supports a centralized metadata repository, data map design, and a data map, digitization of paper, archiving digital records, and management of active records, inactive records, archival records, and record archives or university archives.

The plan enhances compliance with regulations and privacy regulations, including privacy laws such as GDPR, CCPA, and HIPAA, as well as sector rules like a board of regents policy or a local government records act. It improves litigation readiness, e-discovery, data security, and information security, limits compliance risks after a data breach, and strengthens business intelligence and data quality. Automation and machine learning can assist in records schedule execution and governance challenges at scale.

Use cases include a university establishing an executive records governance council, a healthcare provider tightening HIPAA controls, a manufacturer preparing for e-discovery, and a city agency aligning with a local government records act.

Proposal Kit can streamline producing this governance content with document assembly, an extensive template library, automated line-item quoting for project budgets, and an AI Writer to build supporting documents, all designed for ease of use.

Beyond the core framework, this plan benefits leaders by making the information audit a recurring discipline, not a one-time event. By scheduling audits against content stores and systems, teams can verify record-schedule adherence, validate metadata, confirm access controls, and expose gaps before they become incidents. Clear assignment of a records owner for each records series strengthens accountability and supports rapid decisions on retention and disposition. Framing these activities under a risk and compliance lens helps prioritize remediation, reduce regulatory exposure, and demonstrate due diligence to auditors and stakeholders.

Proposal Kit can accelerate building these materials by guiding teams through consistent document assembly. Its templates and AI Writer can help define audit scope and methods, record findings, document roles such as the records owner and records liaison, and align controls to the retention policy and governance objectives. Automated line-item quoting can outline budget and schedule for the audit cycle, training, and records center operations, helping organizations sequence work, secure executive sponsorship, and mature the program efficiently.

To raise adoption, the plan should pair its policies with a pragmatic change management and communication plan. Role-based training for information stewards, records liaisons, and frontline staff needs short, task-focused modules tied to specific systems and records series. A recurring governance council cadence can review exceptions, approve new record series, and adjust the records control schedule when regulations change.

Embedding pre-implementation reviews into project intake ensures new applications, collaboration tools, and cloud services are mapped in the data map, classified at launch, and assigned a records owner with clear retention and disposition rules. Tying these checkpoints to vendor onboarding strengthens third-party risk and compliance oversight and preserves the chain of custody for exported data.

Measurement closes the loop. Useful metrics and KPIs include time to publish a records schedule update, percentage of systems with current data classification, unresolved information audit findings, e-discovery response cycle time, and disposition backlog. Executive dashboards that roll up records, schedule adherence by department, and help the governance committee direct resources.

Cost controls come from defensible deletion of inactive records, optimization of records center storage, and targeted digitization of paper-based records based on business value. When combined with regular tabletop exercises for data breach situations and litigation readiness, the program can demonstrate compliance with regulations while improving operational resilience.

Proposal Kit can help teams operationalize these steps by assembling a cohesive set of documents quickly: governance objectives, records committee charter, role descriptions for the records coordinator and records liaison officer, communication plans, training outlines, document retention policy drafts, and audit and monitoring procedures. Automated line-item quoting can scope budgets for digitization efforts, archival records consolidation, and records center operations, while the AI Writer can produce supporting materials that align with ISO 15489 and generally accepted recordkeeping principles. This accelerates program maturity without sacrificing clarity or ease of use.

Writing the Records Management Governance Plan document

Governance Plan

The Governance Plan will serve to provide a unified, centrally administered approach to records management within Company. The Governance Plan is the road map for the overarching content environment, architecture, system development, process, policy and decisions for the Records Management Program. This plan also identifies the area of ownership for Company's information management group and identifies who is responsible for which areas of the Records Management Program.

The Governance Plan sets the regulations and rules for the use of records and system environments so that the content to be managed is sustainable and grows in a consistent manner that is in line with Company Name's goals and business requirements.

Governance Program Goals

Identify people, skills, ownership, leadership, organization, policies, procedures, and standards required to successfully administer and manage your information resources.

Records Program Committee

Contact List Names Responsibilities Executive Sponsor Project Owner Department Managers Information Technology (IT) Records manager Legal Information Stewards or Content Owners. Areas governed by the Records Program Item Description Content Stores Systems Departments. Records Related Standards Standard Name Documentation Location IT Content Business Regulatory. All Content-Related Policies and Procedures Policy Name Policy Location Process for developing policies and procedures Communication plan Change management Internal and external content Structured and unstructured content.

Records Training Guidelines and Materials Training Documents Document Location Policies and procedures Systems and applications Content-specific material. Records Maintenance Infrastructure Documents Document Location SLA Backup Disaster recovery Monitoring Reports. The development of the Records Policy and procedures and the enforcement of standards should be reviewed, managed and updated by the governance committee as outlined above.