As things wind down for me and I adapt to life without the STC, I realize that it’s probably time for me to try to come back to writing on here. It’s so infrequent that I do, but hey–it’s been a busy last few years, and there’s literally hundreds of old posts you can read if you really wanted to.
Something that’s been on my mind in the work that I’ve been doing is thinking about content governance. Who’s responsible for what? Who wants to take responsibility, and for that matter, are they the right people to take responsibility? Who’s going to maintain all the changes and restructuring that’s done after a project?
I can say with confidence that I’ve spent a good part of my content career being a content janitor. What do I mean by that? Well, it’s exactly like it sounds. I clean up other people’s content messes. Sometimes those content messes are small spills, and some are dumpster fires. Either way, it’s not unusual for me to play a role in cleaning up things when others have made a mess.
I think what frustrates me most–and this has been at multiple places over my career–is that everyone not only thinks they are a writer, but they also think they are content strategists and information architects. Now, this isn’t to say that this can’t be learned organically, but the best ones learn from even better ones, and there are standards, processes, and best practices that one needs to learn to create quality content. When those who are not in the technical communications field or those who don’t have true training and practical experience get involved, it can turn into a hot mess quickly. What’s more frustrating is that when those who DO have that experience and training speak up, we’re ignored, even if we’re the actual experts.
Years ago when I was a volunteer for one of Scott Abel’s Intelligent Content conferences, he encouraged me to take a workshop with Lisa Welchman, who is the queen of digital governance. Her workshop made so much sense because it was really about logical things that people simply didn’t employ! I eagerly bought her book (Managing Chaos: Digital Governance by Design) and it’s still a staple in my bookshelf now. So much of what she writes in her book is common sense as well, and it has influence a lot of my thinking over the years. So much of it boiled down to, “Well, who is taking responsibility for this from the beginning to the middle to the end and beyond?”
How many of us technical communicators walk into roles where the people around us are not content people or don’t fully understand how to manage content correctly? It’s happened more times than not for me. Part of the issue is that without proper project management, change management, and a clearly communicated plan for governance during your project as well as after your project is done, it’s going to be a disaster. Heaven forbid if you explain that doing the due diligence is being too rushed to account for issues that can be resolved with some more time. Those who are normally responsible for content and have the expertise could speak up about these things that aren’t clearly defined, but then it’s seen as stepping on toes, or being out of line, or being difficult. Project parameters and governance shouldn’t be made up while you’re closing in on the end of the project. This is especially important when you have a lot of stakeholders, whether it’s across departments or even divisions of a company.
So, this is where the role of content janitor comes in. A project is launched by a group. There’s the big fanfare that it’s a success because it’s up and running. But not too long afterwards, all the cracks start surfacing. It’s the moment that the technical communicators are wanting to scream, “I told you so,” and yet these same people who were not tasked with leading the project despite being the experts are now the scapegoats who get blamed for all the problems–and the clean up. Why? Because the governance of the project and the maintenance thereafter was not clearly established, and it becomes a case of “it’s not my job,” but no one else is stepping up.
The best thing is to see things for what they are, even if you aren’t in charge of the project, and be proactive in making a plan so that the cleanup is minimal at best. A good example of that is something happened in my day today. The team that does the content maintenance from another division of my company–essentially my counterparts from that division–met with my manager and I to discuss how we plan to deal with tracking and maintaining content requests that will result after a big overhaul that’s happening in our company. We were ensuring our processes aligned with best practices, but also determining how we could ensure that there would be no stepping of toes or acting in a way that would be seen as out of bounds. In other words, we made a decision together to devise some governance for ourselves. It was empowering. I was really thrilled with the outcome of the short meeting. It was clear that we were all thinking along the same lines, and it was just a matter of figuring out the nuances that we could smooth out.
Governance might be seen at implementing rules and restrictions. It’s not that at all. It’s about establishing boundaries and responsibilities to ensure that the content for your organization remains a valuable asset to all those who consume that content.
What are your thoughts? Include your comments below.
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