3-34. The two primary procedures for information management are establishing information requirements and information categories. An information requirement is any information element the commander and staff require to successfully conduct operations (ADRP 6-0). Information management begins by identifying information gaps and developing information requirements. Commanders and staffs may use tools such as mission variables and operational variables to categorize information. (See appendix A for a discussion of mission and operational variables.) All information given to commanders should be relevant information for answering information requirements. Effective information management identifies and organizes relevant information and processes data into information for development into and use as knowledge. Information management then quickly routes information to those who need it. That is, commanders should only receive information that they need for exercising mission command. Forces determine the relevance of information based on the following characteristics: