1. You can lead a horse to water… CMS governance: Aligning people for success 1 Toronto | Ottawa | Calgary | Regina | New York

2. …but you can’t make him drink Aligning people for governance success Thank you for coming! (social media next door)

3. Amanda Shiga 3 NLC: a professional services company with core competencies in online strategy, large-scale web implementations and online marketing WCM consultant (Reddot, Sitecore, Sharepoint) Web strategy and business analysis @amandashiga http://www.nonlinear.ca/blog non~linear creations (Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary, Regina, New York)

4. What is (CMS) governance? 4 Ask 20 people, get 20 answers. A set of policies, roles, responsibilities and processes to guide, direct and control how your CMS is used to accomplish business goals A set of workflows and permissions implemented in your CMS The authoritative administrative structures that setpolicy and standards for Web product management

5. Don’t forget why you implemented a CMS in the first place! Common reasons To remove the IT bottleneck To empower distributed content authors to manage their own content To enforce standards across your web properties To automate processes for greater efficiency To manage web content as a proper digital asset and your website as a proper channel 5

6. 6 A thought experiment

7. 7 The Problem Two different departments have critical events happening at the same time and both want to be on the homepage. There’s not enough room. Who decides what goes on the homepage?

8. 8 The Problem You are considering changing the way you label navigation on your website. Who is responsible for looking at search analytics to determine the vocabulary your visitors actually use?

9. 9 The Problem There is a clear business case for a new faceted search engine. It will benefit almost every group that produces content in the organization. What budget does it come from? Who authorizes the purchase?

10. 10 The Problem The number of online registrations has dropped by 25%. (Increasing registrations is a key objective of the website) Who reacts?

11. 11 The Problem A series of untrue, near-slanderous blog posts are made about your organization and retweeted. Who is responsible for knowing this is happening? Who decides how to respond?

12. What can we do? 12 Today, I hope to … Draw a bigger circle around WCM governance that goes beyond workflows and permissions Provide you some helpful examples for aligning the right people in the right place(s) Offer some suggestions for the tough questions

13. What happens if you don’t put “good” governance in place? Messy, uncontrolled growth of content Organizational conflict Poor adoption and resistance to change Operational inefficiency Loss of credibility Risk of litigation 13

14. Typical governance FAIL No senior champion Project is an IT-driven initiative Web team has limited budget and power No consideration for change management No plan or vision Assuming the technology will handle everything Greatest barrier to success = politics Greatest key to success = senior champion 14

15. What types of governance models exist? Decentralized (common in larger orgs) No single owner Driven by policies and guidelines Organic growth, sometimes leading to site sprawl Centralized (common in smaller orgs) Single owner/department Bureaucratic Highly controlled 15

16. What types of governance models exist? Collaborative Executive champion Steering committee / council Decentralized content ownership Centralized platform 16

17. 17 Executive sponsor Web steering team Web team Content authors A collaborative WCM governance model for a large, distributed organization

18. The executive team/sponsor Roles and responsibilities Defining the overall strategy and priorities for the website. Allocation of funds Ensuring that the right people are in the right positions for online success Reviewing and approving brand guidelines Sets high-level policies Acting as a the final authority for resolving conflicts 18

19. A committed sponsor Doesn’t just sign the cheque Takes responsibility for the project Wants to see the project succeed Is fully informed and educated on the project 19

20. Some tips The business case should sell itself Education is key Provide the sponsor with ongoing status and goal updates Do not hide shortcomings Consider quick wins to show immediate value and maintain support 20

21. The web steering team Advice:the Internet Strategy Forum (2009) The role of internal online strategist has shifted: more than 60% of such positions are within two levels of the CEO The importance of the internet is growing in many organizations – the introduction of senior executive roles responsible for online execution Recommendation: Create a separate Internet strategic management function (do not force into IT or marketing as they exist) 21

22. The web steering team Roles and responsibilities Resolve questions of conflicting priorities based on objectives set by ES Brand enforcement - has power to deny proposals Define internal and external content; create policies on content lifecycle Coordinate activities, reducing duplication Decide how best to address new regulatory or legislative requirements Review metrics and using these to drive decisions 22

23. The web steering team Committees and membership Break down role into multiple committees reporting to the WST Members may be VP-level or middle management – ensure a decisions are made in an effective and timely manner Members should represent a healthy cross-section of departments with an interest in the website 23

24. The web team Roles and responsibilities Undertake ongoing analysis of user behaviour and report on this behaviour to ES and WST Content approval, workflow and permissions decisions Provide training and support to content creators Monitor and tune the site search engine Implement search engine optimization tactics Staying on the “cutting edge” as appropriate 24

25. Knowledge half-life The half life of knowledge in a given field is how long it takes for half of industry current expertise to become irrelevant or incorrect 25

26. Content contributors Roles and responsibilities Creation and editing of content Entry of content into WCM 26

27. 27 Executive sponsor Web steering team Web team Content authors A collaborative WCM governance model for a large, distributed organization

28. Competencies for online success 28

29. Map competency tasks to teams 29

30. Put that all in place. When you develop your workflows and permission granularity, you will benefit from clarity and effective conflict resolution. 30

31. 31 What about Sharepoint?

32. Sharepoint…talk about polarizing Context: An internal collaboration tool A massive cultural change In 2010, a status quo persists: shared drives, email and Excel Behaviours are not easy to change The big idea: no development required 32

33. Why do so many Sharepoint implementations fail? Lack of Sharepoint technology understanding Lack of executive sponsorship Lack of proper planning Lack of user engagement Deployed as a custom web application Lack of roadmap definition 33

34. Sharepoint dream team The executive sponsor remains crucial The steering team takes on some different responsibilities Selling Sharepoint to the organization and finding evangelists Approving how Sharepoint is implemented Final approval or rejection for all aspects of Sharepoint 34

35. The Sharepoint steering team 35 Helpful tips Representation from different departments; consider enthusiasts and volunteers Reconstructed on a quarterly basis (fresh people) Permanent members have more control and should represent different functions as well as departments IT members should be business-savvy, and business members should be IT-savvy; all should know OOTB Chairman should be executive level

36. The balancing act People like to know what to do – guide them Too much governance – lack of adoption Too little governance - chaos 36

37. Other suggestions Create a Sharepoint pilot first Create a positive buzz about the user experience Run the pilot for an influential business group Identify and reward individual evangelists Be careful of permissions With Sharepoint, your architecture must be carefully planned Permissions propagate/inherit in a specific way Again, the underlying system always has an impact 37

38. Advice from the trenches

39. Advice from the trenches Align your people BEFORE your implementation starts! Before technical planning Before information architecture Maybe even before web strategy If you’ve already got a mess on your hands… All the more reason. Decision-making structure should be crystal clear when wading through a mess. 39

40. Advice from the trenches Prepare people for governance sessions Use your information architecture When in doubt, keep it simple. Educate people on CMS concepts: workflow, permissions, publication and other content-related processes. 40

41. The Colouring Exercise 41

42. More advice from the trenches The web is a distinct and unique medium – provide content authors adequate training and consider adding a content strategist to your team What is a content strategist? Rachel Lovinger: A content strategist is a [role] with specialized focus on using words and data to create unambiguous content that supports meaningful, interactive experiences. 42

43. How to encourage adoption Engage evangelists and spread the word Training – people fear the unknown Support structure Involve users as early as possible People will change if the change is worthwhile Restrict as much as possible, within reason 43

44. Act it out 44 Workshop – 20 minutes duration Select some small object to represent a piece of content Choose individuals or teams to represent ownership within the website Act out a process from start to end, including all approval steps and exchanges of information Repeat until your point is made

45. Sketch it out Visual is powerful Creating simple pictures is an incredibly powerful way to discover ideas and solve problems Get everyone up to the whiteboard! Very effective in sessions where team members sketched out their ideal homepage 45 Credit: Dan Roam

46. Use some persuasion 46 Human Behaviour 101 One of the best ways to get people to do something? Turn it into a game and add some competition. We just can’t resist. 50 insights into human behaviour that can be applied not only to web design, but also to business processes. Getmentalnotes.com (Stephen Anderson)

47. The $100 Game 47 Activity: Around 20 minutes You are provided with a list of priorities and $100 to ‘spend’. Distribute the money across the priorities according to how important those features. Explain and defend why you have divided your money in this way.

48. 48 The Problem You are considering changing the way you label navigation on your website. Who is responsible for looking at search analytics to determine the vocabulary your visitors actually use?

49. A good answer The web team is responsible for monitoring analytics and reporting findings to the web steering team. 49

50. 50 The Problem Two different departments have critical events happening at the same time and both want to be on the homepage. There’s not enough room. Who makes this decision?

51. A good answer The web steering team makes the call. Does not need to be escalated to the executive team unless absolutely necessary 51

52. 52 The Problem There is a clear business case for a new faceted search engine. It will benefit almost every group that produces content in the organization. What budget does it come from? Who authorizes the purchase?

53. A good answer The executive team makes the funding decision and allocates budget as required. 53

54. 54 The Problem The number of online registrations has dropped by 25%. (Increasing registrations is a key objective of the website) Who reacts?

55. A good answer The executive team pays attention to this and imposes an appropriate strategy and reaction chain through the steering and web teams 55

56. 56 The Problem A series of untrue, near-slanderous blog posts are made about your organization and retweeted. Who is responsible for knowing this is happening? Who decides how to respond?

57. A good answer Marketing and/or communications might take responsibility for this Social media monitoring 57

59. YouTube

62. MySpace

63. Closed ForumsEvaluation Network Pipeline Actions Monitor (See Notes) Is comment positive / neutral? Is this person in your network? (Twitter follower, YouTube subscriber, Flickr contact) Y Y Is it something you can respond to? Y Let Stand (See Notes) N N Is the comment off-topic for them or clearly just meant to antagonize? Y N Concur, Add or Thank (See Notes) N Is it a rage piece? Are they venting or ranting without a cohesive argument? Y Check their stream. Do they post a lot about related topics? N N Fix (See Notes) Is there a factual error? Is the comment misguided but rational? Y N Y Does the commenter have a specific concern or issue that can be addressed? Y Reach Out (See Notes) Invite them to connect N Is it something you can otherwise respond to? Y N

64. Takeaways Invest in people alignment It’s worth the time, effort and expense There are good and effective ways to structure everyone and everything for online success Form teams spanning traditional silos IT should not drive CMS initiatives Treat Sharepoint as unique Governance with some special tweaks 59

65. Thank you! Amanda Shiga CMS consultant Web strategy and business analysis @amandashiga http://www.nonlinear.ca/blog non~linear creations 60