The document discusses content governance and workflow, noting that while content governance is important, it is often disliked due to a lack of structure and accountability. It recommends establishing executive support, clear roles and responsibilities, documentation, and training to implement an effective content governance plan that minimizes politics and makes governance a regular part of performance reviews. The presentation provides examples of governance tools and strategies for mapping workflows to improve an organization's content processes.
9. Exercise #1:
1. Gather in pairs
2. Define one problem in governance
and/or workflows, in detail,
that you would like to learn
how to solve today
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10. You know you’re in trouble when:
There is not executive or upper-level management support for
governance
No one person is dedicated to being in charge
Politics take precedence over expertise
You have no documentation around governance
You have no training programs around governance
People are not held accountable for governance issues
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12. A good governance plan:
Has executive buy-in and support
Identifies who is responsible for making decisions in various
scenarios
Has documentation and training based on expertise, not
guesswork
Minimizes politics
Makes governance a part of people’s annual review process
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15. Content strategy takes the
guesswork out of execution so
creativity around content will
flourish.
15
16. Workflow vs. Governance
Workflow
What processes, tools and
human resources are required
for content initiatives to
launch successfully and
maintain ongoing quality?
16
Governance
How are key decisions about
content and content strategy
made? How are changes
initiated and communicated?
18. To-do list: Process
Map current workflow to understand weaknesses
Design workflow based on roles and responsibilities, not
people
Clarify roles and responsibilities, each and every time
Document workflow clearly
Choose technology that will support your process
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19. Types of Content Teams
1. Siloed
2. Distributed
3. Centralized
4. Rogue
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20. Types of Content Teams
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Type of content team Pros Cons
Siloed A lot of content gets created because there is no over-arching
process to go through
Departments do not communicate with each other
The audience is confused
The Departments are confused
Distributed Can be useful in situations where you don’t have enough
manpower on your central content team to keep all of your
content fresh
For multi-national organizations, can deal effectively with
language, culture, and other differences
Difficult to govern
Difficult to achieve consistency
Need careful, thorough training
Centralized Have complete control over content Not enough resources or staff
Massive backlogs of content
Confusion over priority
Lack of clarity about ownership
Lack of subject matter experts
Rogue Are extremely motivated to converse with their target audiences
Understand the value of web content
Unhampered by political concerns
Almost impossible to govern
No interest in adhering to workflow
No stake in overall quality or consistency
21. Siloed
Pros
• A lot of content gets created by different teams because there is no over-
arching process and team to go through
Cons
• Departments do not communicate with each other
• The audience is confused
• The departments are confused
• Executives have no idea what’s happening on the ground
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22. Distributed
Pros
• Can be useful in situations where you don’t have enough manpower on your central
content team to keep all of your content fresh
• For multi-national organizations, can deal effectively with language, culture, and other
differences
Cons
• Difficult to govern
• Difficult to achieve consistency
• Need careful, thorough training
• Accountability?
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23. Centralized
Pros
• Have complete control over content
• Not enough resources or staff
Cons
• Massive backlogs of content
• Confusion over priority
• Lack of clarity about ownership
• Lack of subject matter experts
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24. Rogue
Pros
• Are extremely motivated to converse with their target audiences
• Understand the value of web content
• Unhampered by political concerns
Cons
• Almost impossible to govern
• No interest in adhering to workflow
• No stake in overall quality or consistency
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26. Why workflow?
• Break down the content process into manageable tasks
• Identify each piece of content’s stage of development
• Identify each step for the content to receive approval
• Know who is responsible for each step and when
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27. Why is workflow so hard?
• Information flow
• Misplaced talent
• Lack of guidance and clear models
• Lack of training
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30. Workflow Mapping: Phase I
Identify:
• Why create the content (the business objective)?
• Who is involved (the roles)?
• What each role does (the tasks)?
• When the tasks get done (the flow)?
• How will you assess (the result)?
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31. What are the steps?
How is content:
• Requested
• Sourced
• Created
• Reviewed
• Approved
• Published
• Analyzed
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34. Questions to ask while mapping
1. Who currently inhabits the above roles?
2. What is the current process in place for that role?
3. What happens when that person is unavailable?
4. Who gets to make decisions about change in process?
5. How does information flow from one role to the next?
6. How does information get shared? (Files, shared drives,
project management software)
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Roles Definitions
Requesters Creates Assignments
Providers Sources Content
Creators Writing & Sourcing
Reviewers Editors
Approvers Final Approval
Publishers Prepare content for distribution
Distributors Distribute content
Analysts Analyze content performance and
behavior
36. Roles: Phase II
1. Understand current workflow
2. Write up or use current job descriptions
3. Rearrange workflow to be appropriate for the end content
product
4. Rewrite job descriptions
5. Examine who is in those roles
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Roles Tasks Who?
Requesters Requests content
Providers Sources Content—could be multiple
subject matter experts
Creators Writing & Sourcing
Video editing (if necessary)
Photographic editing (if necessary)
Reviewers Edits
Legally approves
Approves for messaging and branding
Approvers Final copy editing
Publishers Prepare content for distribution
Distributors Distributes through different digital
channels
Analysts Analyzes the content over time to see if
it is performing well
39. FOCUS ON THE ROLES.
NOT THE PEOPLE.
NOT THE TALENT.
39
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40. Put the Right People in the Right Roles
• Evaluate talent fairly
• Structure for experience and personality (where possible)
• Don’t be afraid to experiment
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41. May Need…
• More guidance
• More training
• Different job
• More documentation
• Rewards
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48. Examples: Define roles and responsibilities
• Marketing Manager: Why did you ask for this project? What do you need
to be most successful? What metrics do you plan on using to ascertain if
we were?
• Project Manager: What is your job? Explain it to the content people.
• Content Strategist: EXACTLY what are you in charge of doing?
• Writers/Content Creators: Who is responsible for each of the steps?
• Quality Assurance: Who performs and to whom do they give that
information?
• Reporting: How do we know if we’ve been successful?
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49. Who is a part of each process?
• Project managers
• Content strategists
• Writers
• Graphic designers
• Subject-matter experts
• Marketing managers
• Business owners
• Reviewers (legal, HR, department heads, etc.)
• Developers
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Writer
Email web producer
(builds it and puts in alt
tags)
Writer
(looks at it in staging for QA)
Publisher
Writer/Project Manager
Program Director and Interviewees
(for comments)
Project Manager
(collates comments)
Publisher
Extensive changes
Go back?
Non-extensive
changes
Push to go live
Announce to
reviewing staff
Chooses
photos
62. That’s how content strategy
scales; it’s owned by everyone.
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63. Exercise #2:
Sketch your current workflow; just
the highlights—not the details
Notice the bottlenecks and the
bright spots.
63
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67. Where can we automate this?
• Understand what your CMS can do
• Create authoring tools that provide guidance
• Create content models that only allow certain inputs
• Show the ROI on tagging and proper authoring
• Select tech tools to evaluate that might help you
• Use technology to remind you to archive
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80. Business Rules
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What happens when: Decision
A source component is changed by someone other than
the owner?
The changed component becomes a derivative.
A source component that has been identically reused
changes?
Authors who reused the component are notified of the
change to determine if they want to make change to
their usage of the component.
If they choose not to use the changed component their
version of the component becomes a derivative.
New content is created? It is not part of the source until approved.
Authors can resume unapproved content which is in
progress, but their information product cannot be
published until all components are approved.
From: Managing Enterprise Content, Ann Rockley and Charles Cooper,
pg. 242
81. Business Rules
• Govern your reuse
• Implemented in your CMS
• Controlled by CMS or by staff (manually)
• Develop the business rules before they are implemented
• Once you know what they are you can implement them
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87. Taxonomies
• Identifies content
• Defines metadata
• Manages the relationships between those pieces of content
and metadata
• Manages the organization of information so that people can
find the information they need
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93. Archiving Standards
• Use your CMS
• Use your content models
• Have people be in charge quarterly
• Create digital handshakes and handoffs
• Create if then scenarios: If this happens…that happens
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94. Reporting
• Non compliant pages
• Spelling errors
• Dead links
• References to out of date info
• Improper keywords
• Bad metadata
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96. LINKS add depth to your site. Here’s how to use them:
Use action words
Match links to the page title (H1 tag) as much as possible
Link 3-7 words only
Label links if they don’t jump to a web page (example: [PDF])
Ensure active and visited links use consistent colors (i.e., blue and purple,
respectively)
NEVER: use “click here”, put links in places where you’ll lose the reader in the
conversation, or make headlines links
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100. To-do list
People
Gain executive buy-in by emphasizing business goals
Create multidisciplinary governance bodies
Assign decision makers
Train people how to use governance documentation and who to contact
when there are questions
Make governance a part of people’s annual review process
Measure how you are doing; not just in reporting metrics but in
organizational commitment
100
114. Why multidisciplinary teams?
• Adapt to changing technologies
• Break down silos
• Better ideas
• Look at things from different perspectives
• See problems and solutions in a variety of ways
• Have different kinds of political connections
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115. Who to look for?
• Executive sponsor
• Product management
• Business intelligence
• Creative/editorial
• Information technology
• UI/UX
• Legal
115
• Marketing
• Taxonomy manager
• Content creators/editors
• Content managers
• Regional representatives
• Search specialists
• Business line owners
• Training
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116. Option #1: Create two teams
1. Strategic authority: bird’s-eye-view decisions like site
objectives, resources and budgeting, audience definition and
annual planning.
2. Implementation authority: decisions related to day-to-day
operations (requests for the home page, new content,
content maintenance, editorial oversight.
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117. Option #2: Create three teams
1. Steering Committees: they make business decisions about
priorities and allocation of resources (they get the final say
when politics or conflicts amongst different groups arises)
2. Work teams and working groups: Day-to-day implementation
authority; report to the steering committee on a regular basis
3. Task forces: Groups that focus a unique project for a limited
duration
117
120. Somebody has to be the final
say on each and every content
project (and decide who that is
BEFORE the project kicks off).
120
121. Train people how to use
governance documentation and
who to contact when there are
questions
121
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122. Training
1. Model good governance (show people what it really means;
either with mistakes or best practices examples)
2. Invite to training meetings (serve food)
3. Send our reminder emails
4. Perhaps create content ownership?
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124. 2. Invite to training meetings
• Writing workshops
• CMS workshops
• Updates to governance standards
• Archiving schedules
SHOW THEM WHY THEY CARE
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125. 3. Send out reminder emails
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130. Measure how you are doing;
not just in reporting metrics but
in organizational commitment
130
131. Measurement
1. Look at reviews
2. Create personal case studies
3. Use software to show decreases in mistakes with reporting
4. Track workflow to find ways you’ve shortened time to
publication
5. Show how often tools are being updated or used
131
132. Exercise #3:
What’s three ways you could
measure how you’re doing with
governance starting from today?
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133. In reality, these activities are
part of a continuous life cycle
that repeats and repeats and
repeats.
133
134. Remember!!!!
• The law of tiny changes
• If you can affect 10% of change in behavior in a year, you’re
doing great!
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135. Content guides the interactions between
customer and vendor. And it’s [our] job to
orchestrate these content assets—these
touchpoints across the entire customer life
cycle—to deliver a winning, high-growth
customer experience.
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