Factor Presentation for Taxonomy Bootcamp - Governance 2015

Pu#ng the Go in Governance

Gary Carlson [email protected]

@gc_taxonomy, @taxobc

2 November, 2015 factorfirm.com

factor?

•  Factor specializes enterprise-‐scale informaHon and experience challenges.

•  We have outside perspecHve that helps you gain the insight necessary to break through organizaHonal barriers.

•  Our evidence-‐based approach allows us to truly understand what will drive your success -‐and help you get there.

•  Our approach is to understand your business from the perspecHve of both your customers and your staff.

•  You need a clear vision of success – we ensure all your efforts are validated by research and focused on results.

Gary Carlson PRINCIPAL

Bringing over 20 years of experience as a taxonomist, consultant, and informaHon strategist to every project, Gary’s current focus is helping companies develop their informaHon infrastructure to deliver business success and saHsfy customer goals.

Governance Overview

A few random musings to get started

Lessons from Sammy Hagar I Can’t Drive 55

And the US Department of Transporta3on

“Raising speed limits...has an extremely beneficial effect on drivers complying with the posted speed limits.” “Lowering speed limits...provides a noncompliance rate of approximately 67%.”

Quote From Effects of Raising and Lowering Speed Limits U.S. Department of TransportaHon hcps://www.ibiblio.org/rdu/sl-‐irrel.html Image Source:

hcps://i.vimeocdn.com/video/93438962_640.jpg

Taxonomy governance needs to work with exisHng processes

Do every thing you can to incorporate governance into exisHng processes. Going off trail is messy or expensive or both.

Governance needs to be scaled to the size of the problem

Adding synonyms should require far less oversight than adding a new L1 term to a navigaHon taxonomy or product taxonomy.

Know your organizaHonal readiness, technical capabiliHes, and resources available for your taxonomies

Why Taxonomies

•  Increase the number of customers who are finding and purchasing your products and services.

•  Connect content, publishing, and data systems to opHmize the customer experience and business processes.

•  Provide informaHon your customers truly value, across your channels, in a way they can use really use.

•  Understand and implement the most efficient internal processes for your business.

•  Increase overall staff saHsfacHon and reduce points of frustraHon or inefficiency.

What does this mean?

•  Taxonomies need to adapt to new requirements. •  Systems and integraHons that store and manage taxonomies must stay up to date.

•  Content/informaHon personalizaHon requires that taxonomies be shared across mulHple systems and workflows.

•  Taxonomies must work within exisHng workflows. •  People using and managing taxonomies must have visibility into the evoluHon of the taxonomies.

•  TesHng is an essenHal part of managing taxonomies.

What does this really mean?

What does this really mean?

•  Managing and improving system-‐wide taxonomies requires coordinaHon across business units -‐ People need to talk to each other -‐ Processes need to be realisHc and flexible

•  Not all changes are equal -‐ Different types of changes require different types of governance -‐ Level of effort for change = level of impact

•  Taxonomies need to reflect business needs over Hme -‐ Know your business goals -‐ Taxonomy maintenance is forever

Enterprise Taxonomy?

•  All taxonomies require maintenance.

•  This presentaHon is primarily about enterprise taxonomies.

•  An enterprise taxonomy is one that spans mulHple systems, interfaces, business units, user profiles, etc.

Long term viability and sustainability of enterprise taxonomies is dependent on governance, tools, resources, and organizaHonal support. These things are 7ghtly connected.

Approaches to Governance

This is what we usually think ...

AcribuHon -‐ By Daderot (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons hcps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AOblique_facade_1%2C_US_Supreme_Court.jpg

This is what we usually do ...

This is good governance

Five Goals of Taxonomy Governance

1-‐ Allow for management and evoluHon of taxonomies. 2-‐ Support organizaHonal goals. 3-‐ Work with exisHng workflows / realiHes. 4-‐ Provide transparency. 5-‐ Don’t break anything.

Why do we need to manage and evolve taxonomies?

Respond to user needs Business needs -‐  New products -‐  New or updated systems -‐  New or updated workflows -‐  Expanded publicaHon channels -‐  Regulatory changes -‐  Improved operaHonal efficiency General maintenance

Organiza7onal Goals?

•  Omni channel publishing

•  Search and findability

•  Compliance and regulaHons

•  Content re-‐use

•  Improve operaHonal efficiency

Organiza8onal goals should be driving the en8re taxonomy project. Governance needs to align with these as well.

Workflows, really?

Governance needs incorporate exisHng workflows as much as possible. Governance processes need to reflect organizaHonal realiHes. -‐  Taxonomists don’t always get to call the shots -‐  Taxonomy models may need to be adjusted to

address governance needs

Transparency?

Transparent governance goals and processes. -‐  Help people see the “why” as much as the “what”

Understand and account for all the different types of changes.

-‐  One “suggesHon box” is not going to work Expose the process

-‐  Roles -‐  Timeframe -‐  Decision criteria

Don’t Break Anything

•  Systems

•  IntegraHons

•  UI/UX

•  AnalyHcs or reports •  Compliance

Things Needing Governance

Taxonomy terms Taxonomy definiHons Taxonomy structure Taxonomy acributes RelaHonships between terms Types of relaHonships ProperHes of relaHonships IntegraHons Systems Acributes Content Types

Add / Modify / Delete Archive NoHficaHons Guidelines Inputs for change Stakeholders Timeframe

Ac7ons and Inputs

Checklists For each object and type of change that needs to be governed -‐  Types of acHons that need oversight

-‐  Add, delete, modify, archive, etc -‐  PotenHal impacts to assess and account for

-‐  Systems, integraHons, reports, etc -‐  Roles involved

-‐  Who needs to be weigh in on the decision, who needs to be noHfied

Sample – Ac7ons Governance Process Descrip7on

Name Name of the governance acHon

DescripHon Business descripHon of the desired change

System Profiles List of systems or profiles impacted by the change

Frequency How oven are the updates made Objects called Object being acted on

AcHons Full descripHon of the acHons being taken

ValidaHon Processes What validaHon or tesHng processes are necessary, if any

NoHficaHons Who needs to be noHfied before, during, or aver the change

Sample – Roles Role Descrip7on/Example Responsibili7es

Governance Steering Commicee

Consists of representaHves from all major roles. Defines governance processes, sets overall direcHon of governance and assesses its performance

Taxonomy Governance Manager

Receives change requests and manages governance for those where appropriate. Performs day to day acHviHes associated with governance processes.

Content Owners Responsible for escalaHng changes idenHfied within their sphere of effort, reviewing impacts, and working with the Governance Manager to communicate these.

Taxonomy Owners and Stakeholders

These are a special subset of stakeholders responsible for detailed knowledge of the taxonomy model and how it is used across an organizaHon.

Stakeholders Stakeholders who may not be directly engaged in taxonomy creaHon and management, but where visibility into the taxonomy might impact their work

Example 1 -‐ Transparency Problem – a mid sized city department was having difficulty maintaining a consistent taxonomy used for content tagging. This was part of a larger problem that involved the content creaHon process in general. Result – Increase in changes going through standard governance workflows along with increased saHsfacHon in the overall process.

Example 1 -‐ Transparency Role of Taxonomy Governance – In alignment with the general content governance processes the taxonomy process was well documented and made readily accessible to all stakeholders. This included: -‐  Types of changes -‐  Timeframe for change -‐  General overview of the process -‐  Roles/stakeholders involved

Example 2 – A Flexible Enterprise Taxonomy

Problem – Microsov had strong requirements for a centralized taxonomy to support enterprise goals, but very licle control over different business units.

Result – Created a governance model and taxonomy model that allowed individual business units to adapt the enterprise taxonomy to their own needs with licle impact on their exisHng workflows or processes. The governance process for the local taxonomies was streamlined, non-‐invasive, and simple. The governance process for the enterprise taxonomy happened outside the processes of the business units and was much more rigorous.

Example 2 – A Flexible Enterprise Taxonomy

Approach – Using SharePoint and a few basic reports run against the term store we designed a taxonomy model that included a definiHve set of taxonomies managed by dedicated taxonomists to support the enterprise goals. The model also allowed for individual groups to uHlize subsets of the taxonomies and create their own addiHons to the subsets. The enterprise taxonomist received a report with any addiHon to “local” taxonomies. New terms were either added to the corporate taxonomy, lev as local terms, or merged with exisHng terms.

For a full descripHon of this case study see: hcp://goo.gl/DlwbWN

Example 3 – I Can’t Drive 55... Problem – Taxonomy was a new discipline for an organizaHon that considered itself to be nimble with few pesky processes. This lead to very inefficient content management, content duplicaHon, and poor communicaHon with customers. A taxonomy governance project was not going to change corporate culture. Result – Compliance was improved by creaHng processes which directly aligned with the exisHng workflows and corporate culture.

Example 3 – I Can’t Drive 55... Approach – -‐  Keep the taxonomies extremely simple. -‐  Do not allow end users to modify the taxonomies but allow

then to add keywords (which were then assessed by the taxonomist).

-‐  Provide tool Hps whenever possible for terms. -‐  Create simple and usable reports for the taxonomists.

Where is your organiza7on?

Assessing organizaHonal readiness is an essenHal part of a comprehensive taxonomy roadmap. Understanding where you are today idenHfies what you can do today. Building and managing the taxonomy is rarely the issue.

QuesHons?!?!?! [email protected]

http://factorfirm.com

@factorfirm

@gc_taxonomy

design and modeling of informaHon and experiences

Factor Presentation for Taxonomy Bootcamp - Governance 2015

Data & Analytics

Transcript of Factor Presentation for Taxonomy Bootcamp - Governance 2015