Usually you hear about visibility and transparency as they relate to government. Politicians are always describing how government needs to be transparent. They talk about providing visibility into their processes. Given that many people are suspicious of government; these two key words evoke a feeling that you can watch what government does. But who watches government?
Government watches government. So do a lot of other people. However with visibility comes control. When governments document their processes, the people in the process have the opportunity to examine just what they are doing and how to make it better. No one wants to document a bad process; they would just look foolish.
So by documenting exactly what is supposed to happen and how it is supposed to happen, government can become efficient. Once something is documented, it becomes available to the public, hence the transparency. Before processes are documented, people make all sorts of assumptions. No one knows what it really takes to get tasks completed.
Thus a benefit of visibility and transparency is efficiency. What makes this interesting is that the problem is not a government problem. All organizations need visibility and transparency. With it, they become more efficient. They also become more resistant to law suits, regulatory fines and poor business practices.
Yet, we only hear about these terms when they are applied to government. Maybe private enterprise can learn something from government. While many government agencies talk about how open they are, most are not. The ones that are really can be an example for private enterprise.
To take a look at how some government agencies have implemented visibility and transparency in their operations, please visit http://www.docuvantage.com/document-management-for-government