Earley & Associates, Inc. | Classification: PUBLIC USE Copyright © 2012 Earley & Associates, Inc....

Earley & Associates, Inc. | Classification: PUBLIC USE Copyright © 2012 Earley & Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Information Architecture for SharePoint: What You Need to Know

January 24th, 2012

Seth Earley, CEO, Earley & Associates

2Copyright © 2012 Earley & Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

• Co-author of Practical Knowledge Management from IBM Press

• 17 years experience building content and knowledge management systems, 20+ years experience in technology

• Former Co-Chair, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences,

Science and Technology Council Metadata Project Committee

• Founder of the Boston Knowledge Management Forum

• Former adjunct professor at Northeastern University

• Editor Information Professional Magazine from the IEEE

• Guest speaker for US Strategic Command briefing on knowledge networks

• Currently working with enterprises to develop knowledge and digital asset management systems, taxonomy and metadata governance strategies

• Founder of Taxonomy Community of Practice – host monthly conference calls of case studies on taxonomy derivation and application. http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/TaxoCoP 100+ calls since 2005

• Co-founder Search Community of Practice:

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SearchCoP

Seth Earley, Founder & CEO, Earley & Associates

http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/TaxoCoP%20100

http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/TaxoCoP%20100




• Knowledge processes and the content lifecycle

• Developing a user-centric information architecture

• Defining business-critical content types

• Using metadata to optimize search

• Appendix: Term-management governance processes for SharePoint

Agenda


Application Construct Less Structure More Structure

Nature of Process Chaotic Processes Controlled Processes

Knowledge Management

Knowledge Creation Knowledge Reuse

Purpose/Application Problem Solving/Collaboration Accessing Information/Answering Questions

SharePoint Span of Control

My Sites Enterprise Publishing

Class of Tool Collaboration/Communication Workflow/Document Management

The Content Continuum

Information Construct

Unfiltered Filtered

Cost Lower Cost Higher Cost

Value Lower Value Higher Value

Editing/Vetting Informal Formal

Value Lower Higher

Tagging Folksonomy Taxonomy

Ease of Access Low High

Type of Content News/Messaging/Interim Deliverables Best Practices/Approved Methods/Reference Materials


LESS STRUCTURE MORE STRUCTURE

Chaotic Processes Controlled Processes

Problem solvingCollaboration

Accessing informationAnswering questions

Knowledge Creation Knowledge Reuse

ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

Spans Structured and Unstructured Processes

CLA

SS

of T

OO

L

BlogsRecords

ManagementDocument

Management

Process ManagementWikis

Collaborative Spaces

Instant Messaging

Email Management

Web Content Management

Learning Management

Digital Asset Management

My SitesCentralized Publishing


SharePoint Span of Control


Unfiltered Reviewed/Vetted/Approved

Lower Value Higher Value

Lower Cost Higher Cost

RELATIVE VALUE OF CONTENT

Not all content is of equal value

TY

PE

OF

CO

NT

EN

T

(More difficult to access) (Easier to access)

Formal Tagging/Organizing Processes

Message text

External News Example deliverables

Discussion postings

Interim deliverables

Content Repositories

Success Stories

Benchmarks

Approved Methods

Best Practices

Social tagging (“folksonomy”)

Structured tagging (taxonomy)



User Centric Information Architecture Design


Information Architecture Design Process

ContentAnalysis

AudienceAnalysis

RequirementsDefinition

Requirements & AnalysisFindings

RE

SE

AR

CH

& D

ISC

OV

ER

Content Types& Site Column

Design

Term Store& TaxonomyDevelopment

Site Maps& Wireframe

Design

Use Cases,Workflow &Authoring

SolutionDesign

DocumentsDE

SIG

N&

DE

VE

LO

P

TaxonomyUser

InterfaceTagging

ProcessesAuto

Categorization

Test Plan& ExecutionT

ES

T

& V

AL

IDA

TE

GovernanceStrategy

& Guidelines

SocializationCommunication

& Adoption

MigrationStrategy

& Approach

Metrics Development

Governance /MaintenanceProcesses

MA

INTA

IN&

EN

HA

NC

E

Current StateAssessment

FutureState Vision

Gap Analysis

HeuristicEvaluation

Strategy,Roadmap &

Recommendations

ST

RA

TE

GY

& V

ISIO

NN

TaskAnalysis


The IA Design Process• This is a conceptual representation of the IA approach roughly broken into five work

streams: ‑ Strategy and Vision‑ Research and Discovery ‑ Design and Development ‑ Testing and Validation‑ Maintenance and Enhancement

• These are not necessarily discrete sets of activities, there is overlap

• Each document icon (last column) represents a deliverable which summarizes activities in that work stream. These may be combined into a single document.

• Chevrons represent tasks and activities. Not all need to be addressed or they may be addressed as parts of other tasks.

• Steps are not necessarily sequential. For example, Governance and Socialization happen at all levels

• Some deliverables are required as inputs for other processes. For example, Use Cases and User Scenarios are required for testing


Translating Concepts into Design Elements

• Challenge lies in going from an abstraction to something concrete.

• Many organizations are trying to “make the information easier to use” which is a broad ambiguous abstraction

• Need to answer: ‑ What information?

‑ For whom?

‑ Accomplishing what task?

‑ With what information?

• Many information management projects fail because they are too broad, scope is ambiguous, and outcome is not measurable.

• SharePoint IA needs to start with a focus on problems and processes

• May be broadened from this starting point, but cannot solve ambiguous problems


Problems => Solutions• Problems are identified through interviews, surveys, working sessions

• In each forum, we are making observations about the current state: how people accomplish tasks, bottlenecks in processes, problems with information access and findability, challenges around inaccurate and incomplete information

• Need to translate observations about the information environment into a vision of how those issues can be resolved.

• User centric IA requires that we understand the mental model of the user: the tasks they need to execute and how they go about accomplishing their work

• Steps to the process:‑ Observe and gather data points ‑ Summarize into themes‑ Translate themes into conceptual solutions ‑ Develop scenarios that comprise solutions ‑ Identify audiences who are impacted by scenarios ‑ Articulate tasks that audiences execute in scenarios ‑ Build detailed use cases around tasks and audiences ‑ Identify content needed by audiences in specific use cases‑ Develop organizing principles for content


From Problems to Solution – Steps to the ProcessProcess Step Answer the following Example

Observe and gather data (pain) points

What are the specific problems and challenges that users are identifying?

• We can’t locate information about policies for specialty coverage• We need to look in multiple systems to find prior experience

data when underwriting new policies in high risk areas• Different terminology is used in different systems making

queries difficult

Summarize into themes What are the common elements to observations, how can symptoms and pains be classified according to overarching themes?

Inability to locate policy and underwriting information using common terminology

Translate themes into conceptual solutions

Wouldn’t it be great if we could…?

We could access all policy and prior experience data across multiple systems using a single search query and return consistent results?

Develop scenarios that comprise solutions

What would a day in the life o a user look like if this solution were in place?

At a high level, describe how underwriters go about their work in writing policies for specialty and high risk clients. Describe each potential situation and how they would go about their work

Identify audiences who are impacted by scenarios

Who are the users that are impacted?

Risk managers, underwriters, sales personnel

Articulate tasks that audiences execute in scenarios

What are the tasks that need to be executed in each scenario?

For a given scenario, articulate tasks (research options, review loss history, locate supporting research, etc.)

Build detailed use cases around tasks and audiences

What are the specific steps to accomplish tasks?

For a single task, list the steps to execute (this level of detail is not needed in all cases). Step 1 – log on to claim system Step 2 – search for history on the coverage type in geography, Step 3 – etc.

Identify content needed by audiences in specific use cases

What content and information is needed at each step in the process?

Claims data, policy information, underwriting standards, actuarial tables, fraud reports, etc.

Develop organizing principles for content

Arrange the things they need according to process, task or other organizing principle

Begin with “is-ness”. What is the nature of the information? Then determine “about-ness”, the additional characteristics of the information. How would you tell 100 documents of that type apart?


• Start with content

• Develop the taxonomy

• Create metadata fields

• Assemble into content types

• Align personas with use cases

• Create site map based on use cases

• Develop wireframes from site maps

• Create document libraries and navigation based on site maps and wireframes

Content Audit Taxonomy Metadata Content

Types

Personas/ Use

CasesSite Maps Wireframes

Document Libraries

Task based view of SharePoint IA Development


Defining Business Critical Content Types


Content Type Definition

• Content type definition follows from content analysis and detailed use cases

• Need to understand the nature of the information consumed by users

• What is the “is-ness” and “about-ness” that describes content?

• Content types are the single most important IA construct in SharePoint. All other organizing principles are leveraged through content types.


Content Types In SharePoint 2010

• A Content Type is an information management construct that defines a common set of attributes used to consistently manage content that has the same or similar properties. Includes things like: ‑ Metadata Schemas/Attributes

‑ Information Management Policies

‑ Standardized Templates

‑ Workflow Settings

• Provide a consistent approach to content management and establish the foundation for navigability and findability.

• Do not create content types at an overly granular level. Create content types that require differentiation according structure, workflow process, lifecycle or template


• Base content models on core content types

• Build structures for extending content types by considering access and lifecycle

Developing Content Types


• Create different content types when you can distinguish between content based on structure, audience, process, lifecycle

• Determine elements that require controlled vocabulary

• Create metadata schemas to ensure consistency across sites and collections

Developing Content Types


Optimizing Search with Metadata


Taxonomy and Metadata for Search

• Need to base metadata on access scenarios driven by use cases

• Consider metadata specific to content models

• Knowledgebase Article metadata will be different than Policy metadata – each can be leveraged in search scopes

• Facets will vary depending on content object structure.


• Improve findability by leveraging consistently tagged metadata surfaced via facets in a variety of ways…

Leveraging Taxonomy and Metadata to Drive Search

FacetedSearch Design


• Display of facets defined as part of the taxonomy for a specific content type (Forms)

Leveraging Taxonomy and Metadata with Search Scopes

Faceted Search restricted to

Content Type = Form


• Display of topics defined as part of the taxonomy that execute scoped search when

Leveraging Taxonomy as Stored Search Queries

A-Z IndexTerm Set = Topic

Topic = Cost of Work


• Content lies along a continuum of structure and value.

• Effective content management takes into consideration value of content in the context of business processes

• Information architecture needs to focus on specific user needs and processes

• Content types are core constructs for managing the information life cycle

• Search precision and recall is improved by leveraging content metadata

Summary


Wrap up and Questions


Founded - 1994 Headquarters - Boston, MA

What we do – Design and deliver content management and search solutions for companies and their customers

Our core team – 35 information and system architects, library scientists, process improvement consultants, project managers and other information management specialists

Our unique offering – Content Choreography™

Retail

High Tech & Manufacturing

Pharmaceuticals & Life Sciences

Financial Services & Insurance

Media & Entertainment

Our clients include – Global 2000, major non-profits and government entities

Earley & Associates Overview


clients

Partial Client List

http://www.merck.com/

http://www.shire.com/shireplc/

http://www.shire.com/shireplc/

https://www.harvardpilgrim.org/portal/page?_pageid=1391,1&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL

http://www.aetna.com/






http://www.ibm.com/us/en/

http://www.gartner.com/

http://www.raytheon.com/

http://www.gecapital.com/en/index.html

http://www5.jcpenney.com/jcp/default.aspx?mscssid=6a74d2e2e55cb46aea7aba321ea969326xMnVNoVzaGoxMnVNoVzaGW200B68A4060175C94EB3B45B063D4B34871E1015217

http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/rdDefault.asp?

http://corporate.americangreetings.com/

http://corporate.americangreetings.com/

http://www.huawei.com/

http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/index.html

http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/index.html


Communities of Practice

• SharePoint IA Group: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SharePointIACoP/

• Taxonomy Group: http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/TaxoCoP

• Search Group: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SearchCoP

Upcoming Webinar Events

• February 1, 2012 – Business Value of Taxonomy

• More to come soon…

Events and Communities

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SharePointIACoP/

http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/TaxoCoP



Training Opportunities

City Dates Early Reg. Discount before

Houston, TX January 25-27, 2012 January 11, 2012

Arlington, VA February 8-10, 2012 January 18, 2012

Chicago, IL March 14-16, 2012 February 22, 2012

Anaheim, CA April 11-13, 2012 March 21, 2012

SharePoint Information Architecture (3 days) $1995 ($1795, early reg)

AIIM IOA Master Certificate Course (4 days) $2995

City Dates

Stamford, CT February 28-March 2, 2012

Boston, MA March 27-30, 2012


• The Information Architecture Process‑ User Research & Requirements Gathering

‑ Audience and Process Analysis

‑ Roles, Responsibilities, Use cases, Personas and scenario development

‑ Content Modeling and Content Type Definitions

‑ Metadata Schemas and Taxonomy Development

‑ Search Integration

• Term Store Management‑ Creating and Managing Groups

• Creating and Managing Content Types‑ Properties (Site Columns, Workflow, IM Policies)

‑ Overview of Content Hubs

‑ Adding Content Types to Document Libraries

• Creating Metadata for Content Enrichment‑ Core Metadata Schemas

‑ Leveraging Managed Metadata and the Term Store

• Governance‑ Governance planning

‑ Operational zing governance using platform capability

SharePoint Information Architecture 3 Day Hands-on Course


• What you will learn‑ Enterprise search

‑ Content inventory and classification

‑ Categorization and clustering

‑ Fact and entity extraction

‑ Taxonomy creation and management

‑ Information presentation

‑ Information governance

• Who should attend?‑ Anyone with a stake in the success of

your organization’s IOA initiatives

• Certificate options‑ Practitioner (days 1&2)

‑ Practitioner + Specialist (days 3&4) = Master

Information Organization and Access (IOA) – 4 days


Contact

Seth EarleyCEOEarley & Associates

Phone: 781-820-8080Email: [email protected]

Follow me on twitter: sethearleyConnect with me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/sethearley

mailto:[email protected]


Appendix: Architecting Effective Governance Processes


Short term:

• Select owner for the overall taxonomy

• Continue collecting feedback on taxonomy, funnelled through owner

• Identify one representative per product area to own segments of taxonomy (per branch, or section of a branch)‑ E.g. who will own doc types?

• Taxonomy will continue to evolve over time, but aim for a solid baseline to use in initial launch

Governance considerations


Medium term:

• Create a taxonomy governance team‑ Determine roles & responsibilities

‑ Identify executive sponsorship

‑ Identify members

‑ Develop initial documentation – charter, guidelines

‑ Determine group operation (meeting frequency, etc.)

• Develop policies for taxonomy maintenance‑ Determine level of control desired

‑ Develop standard operating procedures for changes, etc.

Governance considerations


Publish & classify

Test & assess

Create & modify

People&

Tools

Taxonomy maintenance cycle


• Standards process – change control‑ Taxonomy is ever evolving, but evolution has to be

predictable/controllable

User suggestions, requirements (e.g. product launch)

Changes in business (e.g. acquisitions)

Changes in vocabulary, error

Standards (ISO, NAICS, etc.)

‑ Formal review process important for quality assurance, consistency

‑ Evaluating costs & benefits of change

Impact on existing systems, retagging, retraining, etc.

• Multi-disciplinary‑ Terminology decisions

‑ Technology decisions

‑ Promotion & oversight

Taxonomy governance


• Centralized or decentralized?‑ Centralized – dedicated team to oversee all changes, policies, etc.

‑ Decentralized – each business unit governs own portion

• Best of both worlds: ‑ Editorial board to provide leadership, manage overall taxonomy and

resolve issues

‑ Local groups manage their own local term sets (translations)

Consistency with flexibility

Standardized interoperability

Governance model


• Requires participation from a multi-disciplinary team‑ Business areas, Skill sets and Functional areas

Roles & Responsibilities

Executive Sponsor

Systems

IA & UX

Content Specialists

Executive Sponsor

Overall project owner and advocate

Site Owners

Responsible for guiding use of taxonomy on site

System Owners

IT representatives guiding implementation of taxonomy

Taxonomist

Responsible for guiding use of taxonomy on site

Information Architect

Wire frames, site map, user experience

Vocabulary Owners

Responsible for specific taxonomy branches

SMEs

Stakeholders providing input on vocabulary


• Start with champions ‑ Involve people who are directly affected by taxonomy issues

• Decide on level, locus of control‑ Do offer oversight but don’t be a bottleneck

• Assign accountability‑ Overall taxonomy & individual branches

• Integrate with existing work processes

• Identify your organization’s velocity

Best practices / tips for success


• Measure-and-Improve Mindset‑ Query logs and click trails are prime example

• Integrated handling of Taxonomy, Metadata, UI, and Search‑ To be most effective, these must work together

‑ Governance structure must help that happen

Recommendations & Best Practices


Thank you

Earley & Associates, Inc. | Classification: PUBLIC USE Copyright © 2012 Earley & Associates, Inc....

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