Someone emailed me over the weekend to ask me what the exact topic of the book is. I explained that it was primarily aimed at Compliance in relation to Enterprise Content Management but I thought that it might help if I was more explicit.
So...here is an excerpt from the book's 'Quick Start Guide'...I hope that this helps.
Wondering what to read, when to read it?
CHAPTER 1: THE THEORY
A general look at compliance and specifically what we mean by compliance in the context of this book. I look at the different types of regulations and why sometimes they work and sometimes they are just hopelessly flawed.
CHAPTER 2: COMPLIANCE – A DISCIPLINE IN FLUX
If compliance was static then you would not need this book – the last one you purchased in 1972 would be just fine. Unfortunately it is hard to imagine a business area in more flux than compliance. This section touches briefly on the areas of flux and why they are all coming together and creating the ‘perfect storm’ of business problems.
CHAPTER 3: RISK ANALYSIS
Read this section before reading anything after it. It is the traffic cop of compliance. This section covers very briefly the concept of risk analysis – before you start spending your hard earned money on a compliance solution think about whether you really need one or at least think about how much you should spend trying to solve a compliance issue.
This chapter alone may justify the cost of the other 50 copies of this book that you decide to purchase for your staff!
CHAPTER 4: COMPONENTS OF A SUCCESSFUL SOLUTION.
Having decided that you need a compliance solution this is the section to read to discover the attributes of successful compliance system. I’ve sat through countless hours of seminars and read way too many boring papers and condensed them in to one chapter of this book. You so owe me for the number of days I spend assimilating this information on your behalf!
CHAPTER 5: IMPLEMENTING SUCCESSFUL SOLUTIONS
OK, now you have the theory of what a compliance solution should look like under the covers. Some would argue that you’ve only bitten off the tip of the iceberg – they should be shot for mixing metaphors but ironically they are right.
This whole section discusses a concept that I term ‘Egoistical Compliance’. Egoistical compliance is a theory but as you will see from this section, parts of it a here today and with an eye on this goal you will be able to make things a lot less painful moving forward.
CHAPTER 6: EVER-CHANGING COMPLIANCE REQUIREMENTS
Most of this book relates to how to implement new solutions in to existing business processes but I felt that it was vital to also address a slightly different use case.
So you followed my advice and you are now fully compliant. Your solutions are non-invasive but pervasive. The end users adore you, the auditors have life-size posters of you on their office walls and upper management made your birthday a company holiday. All is well with the world…until…an agency releases version 632b of their guidance paper and you need to react to this change.
Fear not – the life-size posters do not need to become dart boards, all is not lost.
CHAPTER 7: THE FUTURE OF COMPLIANCE SOLUTIONS
The first 6 sections of this book discuss the current state of compliance solutions, this chapter considers some of the issues that need to be resolved in the future in order for us to be able to bridge the gap between compliance requirements and available technology.
APPENDIX A: CASE STUDIES
I’ve tried to include relevant mini-studies throughout the book to put things in to context and also make it a little less monotonous. However, some of the case studies are so interesting that I’ve pulled them out in to this thrilling conclusive chapter.
Read the case studies even if you think they don’t apply – for example HIPAA contains regulations that may not affect you directly but the concepts are starting to become very common across the board.