Last time I presented Part 1 of this three part series on governing taxonomies, focusing on the initial steps in taxonomy development (e.g. taking the initial steps to building out a taxonomy, project planning, etc...). For this post, I want to talk about the Maintenance Processes, or whatto do with a taxonomy once it’s built.
A Little Recap
Basically, taxonomy governance is organized into three main areas:
- Taxonomy Development (the last post)
- Taxonomy Maintenance (this post)
- Taxonomy Growth (future post)
I realize that these posts ask a lot more questions than they answer, but I think that’s the point. I’ve got “answers” for all these questions, but they vary from company to company. When I consult with clients, it’s about answering these important questions to make sure we’re covering all aspects of taxonomy governance.
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Now I want to talk about the Maintenance Processes. What do you do with a taxonomy once it’s built -- but not necessarily fully implemented across your organization. As was said last post, this will eventually become a white paper that I will make available to you. In the meantime, here’s the second of three sections on taxonomy governance: Taxonomy Maintenance.
Teams
- Taxonomy -- what kinds of roles and people are included in a taxonomy team?
- End users -- how does a taxonomy benefit an end user? How are end users involved in the development of a taxonomy?
- Advisors -- what kinds of roles or stakeholders are involved in the development and maintenance of a taxonomy?
- Technology -- what kinds of technologies are necessary for the creation and maintenance of a taxonomy?
- Governance --- how is a taxonomy governed for short and long terms?
Technology
- Manual integration -- how is a taxonomy manually integrated or used within a system?
- Automated integration -- how is a taxonomy automatically integrated into a system?
- Autoclassification -- what role does a taxonomy play in autoclassifying content?
- Systems -- what kinds of systems does a taxonomy work with? \
- Integration -- how does a taxonomy integrate into one or more systems?
Building
- User interviews -- how are user interviews used to determine what terms are included in a taxonomy?
- Content audit -- what is a content audit and what kinds of content should be audited to inform a taxonomy build out?
- Primary build -- what needs to go into the first build of the taxonomy?
- Revisions -- how are revisions made and tracked during construction?
- Technical implementation – how is a taxonomy implemented into a technical system?
- Standards integration -- what kinds of standards should be considered as the taxonomy is being built?
- Editorial development -- how does the terminology used in the enterprise get harvested and used in the taxonomy?
- Testing -- what kinds of tests need to be performed to validate the taxonomy?
Stabilizing
- Testing -- how is the taxonomy tested inside the multiple systems that it integrates into?
- Analysis -- what kinds of analytics are needed to measure and track the effectiveness of the taxonomy within the enterprise?
Maintaining
- Terms -- how to add, edit, delete, deprecate and maintain overall relevance of terms in a taxonomy
- Technology -- what has to happen in the technology to maintain the taxonomy?
- Committee -- what does a committee do to provide governance to a taxonomy?
Editors Note: To read more from Mike check out: Using Taxonomies to Drive Intranet User Adoption