Defining a Model for Content Governance
 |  | http://www.contentmanager.net/magazine/article_785_defining_a_model_for_content_governance.html |
Five years ago, web content management implementations still failed because of inadequate technology – today this is almost never the case. Instead, a failure to embed a workable content management process within the CMS infrastructure is the most frequent root cause. The content management process is driven by people – it is people, not technology that are the core components. To achieve a successful implementation of a web content management solution, you need to understand who is to do what, when and with what content.
A content governance model tries to do just that. It captures the range of ongoing decisions that are made as content is developed, edited, approved, published to the web and retired. It creates roles and assigns specific responsibilities and privileges to these roles.
As part of an on going series of whitepapers, I’ve recently been cataloguing the range of questions that that a content governance model needs to answer. In an attempt to bring some structure to the increasingly overwhelming list, I attempted to organize these questions according to that central metaphor of WCMS implementations, the content lifecycle.
I failed. Or, more charitably, the “content lifecycle” metaphor wasn’t up to the task. The standard cradle-to-grave lifecycle diagram looks something like this:
This Platonic ideal of the content lifecycle captures some truths – clearly someone will need to be granted editorial powers and responsibilities and we’ll need to set a schedule for content rotation. But in its linear simplicity it misses the real messiness of CMS governance decisions. Two quick examples – it overlooks the question of template development and ignores the migration of legacy content entirely.
A real world content lifecycle would look more like this:
With a bit of effort, I was able to resolve this messiness into a set of broad categories as a skeleton on which to hang a governance model. Most of the governance questions you’ll need to answer fall into one of these categories:
- Legacy Content Migration
- Template Considerations
- New Content Creation
- Content Modification and Reuse
- Version Control and Site Rollback
- Content Rotation and the End of the Road
- Monitoring Progress, Managing for Success
For example, consider the range of governance questions surrounding the creation of new content. A deceptively simple question such as “who will create new content?” unwraps to a whole series of questions:
- Will each internal division contribute its own content or will there be a central web authoring group?
- Who will be responsible for “core” content that is not the specific responsibility of any division?
- Will other organizations or outside writers be contributing content? If so, will this have a significant impact on WCMS licencing?
- How will you address authorial copyright?
- Will you take advantage of third-party RSS feeds? If so, who will decide which feeds?
Adding workflow considerations introduces a new layer of complexity. It is not unusual for workflow to be the most contentious aspect of web content governance. Determining who will be the gatekeeper of online content frequently brings marketing, legal and business units into conflict. There is a very real reason for this conflict.
Web content management systems promise two business benefits:
- Fast, efficient publishing of content that eliminates IT bottlenecks.
- Improved compliance of online information with corporate branding, privacy, security and legal standards.
It’s not hard to see that these potential benefits are in tension. Effective compliance may require review by multiple individuals or groups of individuals. Not infrequently, this can replace the IT bottleneck with a content-approver bottleneck. A thoughtful workflow schema can help alleviate this tension.
Key questions a workflow schema should address include:
- Who will be responsible for the ongoing creation and modification of workflows?
- How many workflows will be created? Will these vary by type of content?
- How many layers of approval will be required and will this vary with the type of content? For example, a public company’s Annual Report will probably require more layers of approval than the posting of a product description.
For each workflow, you will need to determine:
- What happens when content is rejected? Does it return to the original author? Or, in a multi-step workflow process, does it return to the previous reviewer?
- Can an editor make changes to content and then publish without approval of original author?
- How will you handle exceptions such as a key approver taking holidays or an emergency situation?
- Does “legal” need to approve content prior to publishing?
- How will you deal with delays in content approval? Do you need an escalation path that ensures swift approval? Or are delays acceptable?
Many of non-linear creations’ clients publish content in multiple languages.
Multilingual publishing raises a set of questions that include:
- Can your workflow processes make translation more efficient by routing new or modified content automatically to the translation team?
- If so, will you set up a parallel or serial workflow? That is, will you allow parallel approval of translated documents or must copy in one language be approved first, then sent for translation, then that translation approved prior to publication.
- How you will manage the final publication of multilingual content. Will you allow approved copy in one language to “go live” prior to completion of translation? Or will you define a gating process that requires the content to be complete and approved in all required languages prior to publication?
These questions are only a small subset of those required to establish a complete governance model. Our recently released whitepaper Planning for Success: Best Practices in Content Governance is an attempt at a comprehensive model. It includes a list of the questions we think need to be thought through before you begin implementing a content management solution. You can download it at http://www.nonlinear.ca/cmsgoverance/.
We’re particularly eager for feedback on this paper – governance is a complex issue and we welcome your insights. Please send comments to cmsgovernance@nonlinear.ca and I promise you a rapid response.
Published: 09/2005
Author: Randy Woods
| | Randy Woods is executive vice president of non-linear creations, a leading internet technology and marketing consultancy.
|
))
