It’s the People, Not the Process

Tom O’Connor posted yesterday about a conversation that has bounced around the litsupport mail list, quoting John Martin in the title of his post, It’s the Archer, not the Arrow.

I won’t repeat what Tom has written, you can go read it yourself, and frankly, I couldn’t write it as well as he did anyway.

But I do want to point out something that I’ve found to be true through the years, and that held true not just in the e-discovery world, but in every area of technology. It’s still all about the people. There’s no process, or tech tool, that can stand up to a single person not following the proper procedure. Every security policy, record retention policy, e-discovery or forensic process depends on people doing the right thing, and thus it all has one common point of vulnerability.

Unfortunately, I find far too many people continuing to try and protect this vulnerability with more technology, when the real solution lies in having people who are properly trained and motivated to do the right thing. It’s not as easy as throwing more technology, or budget, at the problem, but it’s a heck of a lot more efficient.

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