Web Content Management Solution Offering

From MIKE2.0 Methodology

This Solution Offering currently receives Major Coverage in the MIKE2.0 Methodology. Most required activities are provided through the Overall Implementation Guide and SAFE Architecture, but some Activities are still missing and there are only a few Supporting Assets. In summary, aspects of the Solution Offering can be used but it cannot be used as a whole.

Introduction

The Web Content Management Solution Offering provides techniques for building, managing and delivering web-based content to the internet. The offering includes specific techniques and technologies for browser-oriented content as well as a focus on areas of particular complexity for web channel delivery such as security and usability. New “Web 2.0” technologies as well as more traditional technologies receive coverage within the offering.

Executive Summary

Web content management deals with effective digital communication. It covers the processes how to produce, store and distribute content inside and outside the enterprise. The challenge of Web Content Management is that web content only comes to life when it is used or consumed: a Website without users (which is a very frequent situation) may be perfect in terms of content , design etc. but it is nevertheless a useless waste of time and money. The most striking examples for this are the millions of “Social media” websites or apps where the creator is the only user. On the other hand, web content that has usage without any consequences i.e. interaction, transaction, exchange, is also a waste of time. Consider for this the difficulties of social media platforms to define a business case beyond the hype.

The best approach for thinking about Web Content Management is to take a look at the first statement of the Cluetrain Manifesto: Markets are conversations

The most important conceptual dimensions of web content management are therfore:

• Whom is the content targeted at? Who am I talking to?
• What is the subject, the message of the communication? About what do we talk?
• What is the purpose of the communication? Why do we talk with each other?

When looking at content management as the management of communication, it also becomes apparent that there are several layers to the content: the abstract content, or the facts, the formal presentation of the content that shapes the message in terms of language, style, graphic presentation.

Solution Offering Purpose

This is a Core Solution Offering. Core Solution Offerings bring together all assets in MIKE2.0 relevant to solving a specific business and technology problem. Many of these assets may already exist and as the suite is built out over time, assets can be progressively added to an Offering.

A Core Solution Offering contains all the elements required to define and deliver a go-to-market offering. It can use a combination of open, shared and private assets.

Solution Offering Relationship Overview

This Solution Offering is part of the ECM Solution Group

MIKE2.0 Solution Offerings provide a detailed and holistic way of addressing specific problems. MIKE2.0 Solution Offerings can be mapped directly to the Phases and Activities of the MIKE2.0 Overall Implementation Guide, providing additional content to help understand the overall approach. The MIKE2.0 Overall Implementation Guide explains the relationships between the Phases, Activities and Tasks of the overall methodology as well as how the Supporting Assets tie to the overall methodology and MIKE2.0 Solutions. Users of the MIKE2.0 Methodology should always start with the Overall Implementation Guide and the MIKE2.0 Usage Model as a starting point for projects.

Relationship to Solution Capabilities

The MIKE2.0 Collaboration, Knowledge Capture and Communities of Interest Solution Offering is primarily focused on Information Development. It uses a number of activities from the Overall Implementation Guide to see a project through from strategy to implementation.

Relationship to Enterprise Views

This solution is primarily about enabling Information Development in a knowledge context. It provides the ability to access primarily unstructured content and bring it together for users in a fashion that makes it easy to understand, communicate and learn.

On a practical level, Web Content Management deals with the processes how content gets produced, stored and made accessible to users. The knowledge context means that web content management always needs to be seen as an act of communication.

• Communication inside the enterprise (aka Intranet)
• Communication with external stakeholders (aka the public websites)
• Communication across organization boundaries (aka collaboration spaces)

Mapping to the Information Governance Framework

The Information Governance Solution Offering is required across all Solution Offerings. For this offering it is particularly important that the governance models focus on security for accessing information as this can be an area of significant complexity. The scope should cover structured data and unstructured content, with appropriate roles related to taxonomic development, standard lexicons and priorisation of information based on relevancy.

Mapping to the SAFE Architecture Framework

For an web content management programme, a number of components may be required from the SAFE Architecture. All components within Enterprise Content Management are particularly relevant to this offering. In addition, a Search capability is a priority area.

Mapping to the Overall Implementation Guide

A typical Collaborative and Knowledge Management Search engagement will involve a large number of the Activities from the Overall Implementation Guide. Users of MIKE2.0 should review each activity as a starting point to see if they are required based on the scope of the project requirements.

The Usage Model for Enterprise Content Management provides a list of all the required activities for this offering. Shown below are the most important activities for a typical programme and how they relate to the overall approach.

Phase 1 - Business Assessment and Strategy Definition Blueprint

For a comprehensive, top-down programme a number of the activities are required from this phase to define the overall Business Strategy. Some programmes can be quite tactical but generally should cover these tasks at a very high level. Some strategy activities may not be needed if they were already done as part of part of an enteprise programme, as described in the Enterprise Content Management Strategy Solution Offering.

Enterprise Information Management Awareness

The Enterprise Information Management Awareness activity is important to introduce concepts related to collaboration. This is an area that has undergone significant technology changes over the past few years and users typically benefit from education related to community-based content development, security and web-based collaboration.

Activities:

The main acitivity of the Awareness is the maturity assessment of the organization. This is best done with a quickscan. The quickscan can cover all areas of web content or focus on a specific area of interest (e.g External Website, Intranet, eCommerce, Collaboration, Social Media)

The Maturity assessment covers the following dimensions:

• Processes: Which processes do exist for the creation, publication review and removal of Web Content?
• Governance: Which stuctures and organizations are in place to manage Web Content. Which roles and responsibilities exits and how effective are they?
• Technology: Which technologies are used to manage web content, how are they integrated into the overall Information Architecture of the enterprise
• Reporting and Analytics: Which reports exist about web content, what analytics are used to understand efficiency and effectivity of the Web Content. How are reporting and analytics integrated into objectives and KPI?
• Quality Management: Which standards are defined for to measure and ensure the quality of Web Content. How are these standards tied into the Processes, governance and analytics?
  

Maturity Model:

• Level 1: Unaware: Web Content is created based on individual initiatives ad hoc. Typical situations for a Unaware Maturity level discovered by the quickscan are:

Public Website: Each country / Business Unit produces has distinct Web Content production. Design and Usability guidelines are either not existing or not enforced. There is no overview of which websites exist and who is responsible for them.

Intranet: The most visited page is the Menu of the cafeteria (because it is the only maintained content). All pages are only in local language. There is substantial overlap of duplicate functionality between Intranet tools and other business tools with partial maintained interfaces and partial duplication of data.

Collaboration: Many collaboration pilots exist. Access and security is not managed or audited.

Social Media: Enterprise representation on Social media is left to individuals. There are no guidelines existing regarding use of Social Media by individuals or business. There is no monitoring of Social media.

• Level 2: Aware: Specific initiatives in single areas are pursued. Single Units and function have developed guidelines, governance. These activities are not aligned. 
• Level 3: Reactive: Web content management is practiced mainly as a one way communication channel. Publication processes and tools exist with a focus onto the public website. Guidelines regarding design, usability, etc. are existing. Web statistics are employed, but are not tied back into objectives or KPI's.
• Level 4: Managed: End to end processes for generation, distribution and removal of content are existing and supported by tools. Feedback and Usage is measured. Content production is mainly one way (publication not collaboration). There are clear guidelines regarding design, usability, security, social media. Compliance with guidelines is audited.
• Level 5:Optimized: Planned, measured, Learning, New content is generated according to need analysis and inclusion of Users into content generation. Content is actively shared and distributed to various electronic communication channels (Web, Mobile, Mail, Print). Social Media activities are managed and monitored continously.
  

Overall Business Strategy for Information Development

In the Overall Business Strategy for Information Development activity, the strategic business initiatives are defined in the context of information requirements. For collaboration and knowledge development, this activity defines the scope of information to be shared and collaboratively developed, as well as the ultimate knowledge goals for the organisation.

Activites:
The main activity in this is to reach a shared definition of objectives for web content management and what is the contribution of web content managment to the overall enterprise goals. This will mainly focus on the common use cases for web content management:

• Internet (Public Website, eCommerce)
• Intranet
• Web based Collaboration
• Social Media

Depending on the use case, different stakeholders will have to be included into the definition. While for the Internet use case communications and sales functions are expected to play a major role, human resources may be expected to be stronger involved in social media and intranet use cases (especially regarding privacy and employee rights). In cross enterprise collaboration as a third example both procurement and sales may be stonger involved.

As a starting point for the definition, the company strategies are mapped to the contribution potential of Web content management.

Future State Vision for Information Management

The Future State Vision for Information Management is an important activity for defining the strategic conceptual architecture for collaboration and knowledge development As this typically involves a number of different conceptual components, a systematic approach to architecture is important. High Solution Architecture Options should also be defined at this stage.

This activity also defines the future-state business processes for information management. This process is critical for knowledge development; at this stage it is focused on high level processes and processes should be re-engineered to improve the mechanism for developing knowledge capital most effectively.

Activities:
The main activities of this step is the combination of the strategy against the identified contribution potential of web content management to the overall company strategy.
The potential is mapped to the quickscan assessment and prioritized. The result is of the exercise is a prioritized definition of the contribution potential and an evaluated gap assessment in terms of maturity.

In a second step the following the desired future state is described. Also here it is helpful to utilize the dimensions of the maturity model and assessment to structure the future state vision:

• Processes: Guiding principles for process design for use the defined use cases. Process list for content production, visual design and interaction management for the defined use cases.
• Governance: Stakeholder identification and high level role definition on functional and business unit level. E.g What shall be the role of corporate communications in the Public website and what in eCommerce?
• Technology: High level architecture for each use case in terms of centralization, decentralization, security, integration to backend systems for each use case.
• Reporting and Analytics: Design principles for Analytics and Reporting for each use case. Definition of relevant KPI for the use cases.
• Quality Management: Governance and design principles for content quality management.

While the outcome of the first phase is “only” documents, it is of utmost importance to include stakeholders into each step of the exercise to ensure a common and shared future state vision. Implementation will always lead to numerous conflicts inside the organization. Only a shared and transparent vision allows to bring back controversial discussions onto common ground again.

Phase 2 - Technology Assessment and Selection Blueprint

For a comprehensive, top-down programme a number of the activities are required from this phase to define the overall Technology Strategy. Some programmes can be quite tactical but generally should cover these tasks at a very high level. Some strategy activities may not be needed if they were already done as part of part of an enteprise programme, as described in the Enterprise Content Management Strategy Solution Offering.

Strategic Requirements for Technology Backplane Development

In the MIKE2.0 Methodology, Enterprise Content Management technologies are seen to reside along the Technology Backplane of Information Development and Infrastructure Development. This activity is used to define the capabilities that are needed for the strategic implementation of these programme.

Strategic Non-Functional Requirements

Strategic Non-Functional Requirements for Collaboration and Knowledge Management are defined at a overarching level in this activity. There is a particular focus on usability, performance and ability to scale to meet future business volume growth requirements.

Current-State Logical Architecture

The Current-State Logical Architecture assesses the current capabilities in the environment for Collaboration and Knowledge Exchange. This activity specifically defines which technologies can be re-used and the scope of any content that should be migrated.

Future-State Logical Architecture and Gap Analysis

The Future-State Logical Architecture and Gap Analysis builds on the conceptual architecture that is already defined and takes it to the level of detail required to make strategic technology decisions. A gap analysis can then be conducted be conducted between the current-state and future-state to determine which technologies can be re-used.

Future-State Physical Architecture and Vendor Selection

Through defining the Future-State Physical Architecture and Vendor Selection, logical capabilities are mapped to specific product options. This mapping is then used to make technology decisions, often through an RFP-based selection process.

Phase 3 - Information Management Roadmap and Foundation Activities

Within Phase 3, the scope of the solution for a specific increment is defined and the overall content model begins to take shape.

Detailed Business Requirements

When developing the Detailed Business Requirements for collaboration and knowledge development, the focus is on the scope of information to be shared and defining the business goals for collaboration. This activity builds off the strategic set of requirements, adds more detail and prioritises business requirements for the increment of work to be implemented.

Taxonomy Design

The Taxonomy Design activity defines the structures for relating content to one another. For collaboration and knowledge environment, the development of this taxonomy is one of the critical aspects of the solution. Taxonomy design may range from a formally designed structure to one that grows more organically.

Phase 4 - Design Increment

For Web Content Management, a number of design activities are required which are described below.

Information Security Design

Information Security Design defines which information can be seen by users within the collaborative environment. The most important aspects of security design relate to how information is accessed and who can edit content. Group-based access control is typically used to implement security rules.

Infrastructure Management Process Design

The Infrastructure Management Process Design applies to the back-end environment that stores content. It also applies to the management processes and technology responsible for holding backup content from the collaboration environment and making it quickly available in the case of a recovery scenario.

Collaborative Framework Design

Collaborative Framework Design is one of the most important activities for this Solution Offering and all tasks are needed. It is the activity that defines how users will interact with one another, how internal and external assets will be brought together in the collaborative environment and how users may specifically classify content.

User Interface Design

The User Interface Design activity defines the front-end interface in which a user will interact with the collaborative system. From a search perspective, the simplicity of this interface design is essential. Simple data re-engineering steps such as lemmatisation and spell checking may be interactively provided through this interface.

Also critical is the ability for users to be able to quickly make decisions from the large amounts of information that is returned. Users need to be able to visualise information results through graphical views, categorisation of results and personalisation.

Phase 5 - Develop, Test & Deploy Increment

Through development, testing and deployment activities the solution the prototyped is hardened and implemented into production.

Technology Backplane Development

The Technology Backplane Development activity covers the development of integration and information management components for Collaboration, Knowledge Capture and Communities of Interest. This includes development of interfaces, web components and security technologies.

Testing Activities

Depending on the complexity of the solution, different testing activities will be required although testing is generally not complex. Functional Testing and some level of System Integration Testing will be required at a minimum; SVT is are also important. Perhaps most important is UAT; it should be ensured that are users are actively engaged throughout the development and testing process. Testing for collaboration and knowledge exchange technologies is much quicker than other types of engagements.

Mapping to Supporting Assets

Logical Architecture, Design and Development Best Practices

Product-Specific Implementation Techniques

Product Selection Criteria

Relationships to other Solution Offerings

Based on the overall Web Content Strategy, there are a number of other solution offering that are relevant for Web content management solutions:

Information Strategy, Architecture and Governance

The Information Governance provides the organizational and management procedures also for the ownership of the Web Content for both intranet and the public internet. It provides the governing bodies for definition and issue resolution regarding privacy and confidentiality of information.

The Architecture Strategy becomes relevant as soon as the Web Content starts to get integrated to other applications, namely CRM in terms of online marketing activities, ERP solutions in eCommerce or Customer Self-Service Solutions.

Enterprise Data Management

Inside the Enterprise Data Management solution offering both Master and Reference Data Management and Customer Data Integration are of primary concern. The higher the integration of Online activities into the overall Business processes are, the more important it is to include Web Content management activities into the Data management Activities.

Customer data Integration is crucial for all Personalization of Web Content. There are numerous instances of failed integration where Personalization features on Websites are not integrated into any kind of Customer data, what makes the usage of such data for Analytical or Predictive BI extremely difficult.

As most Web content management is today built and displayed dynamically using tagging it is important to align such taxonomies across the enterprise, thus increasing the both value of online analytics for the enterprise BI, and providing improved integration of online activities into the business activities (E.g. feedback forms or contact information should be mapped to the respective organizational structure to improve dispatch, response times etc.)

The same can be said in regards to the material and product master data. Aligning this master data domain between Web Content management and the rest of the enterprise is a prerequisite for any kind of integration of online activities with business processes. There are numerous instances where - due to lacking alignement – Web Content management duplicates partially structured product data in unstructured formats leading to all kinds of maintenance or even compliance issues.

Business Intelligence and Performance Management

The relationship between Web Content Management and BI / Performance management is twofold: On the one hand, the production, distribution and management of web cContent must be part of the overall KPI and performance management models and therefore be included into the BI. This is the more important as Online communication via Web, E-mail, Social media becomes a primary format of any kind of communication between the enterprise and its stakeholders.

On the other hand, the usage of the web content through visitors, users, customers provides a wealth of precise and structured information to BI. Due to lacking alignement of master and reference data, this intelligence remains frequently locked inside Web Analytics Applications because it cannot e meaningfully mapped to the traditional BI dimensions. This is where the discussion of Big Data enters the picture.

Information Asset Management

The critical relationship between Web Content Management and Information Asset management is the fact that the web content on the public website represents the publicly available information about the enterprise. As the web has evolved to become the most widely used information source about an enterprise, it is fair to state that Web Content is the most important shaping dimension of the public and individual perception of an enterprise for all external stakeholders.

Therefore all aspects of information asset management for Web content need to be considered crucial:

• Information Management processes: inappropriate or untimely publication of news and announcements on the Website may have catastrophic consequences. Also, reputation damage through outdated content needs to be considered.
• Data Center Management: The web is online 7x24. This also sets the minimum requirement for data center management and availability.
• Information Security: in this respect the following 2 factors are especially relevant for Web content.
• Using web Content management and publication systems for intrusions: Based on the fact that Web Content is published for the internal network to the public network, these gateways are prone to be routes for intrusion.
• Hijacking and Hacking: Of equal importance is to protect the integrity of the published content against corruption through hacking and hijacking of the website.

Access Monitoring and Control

Also here there are 2 main aspects relevant:

• Access control and monitoring of the content management environments during the production and publication processes
• Access control and monitoring to the published content.

In addition also the implications of access monitoring and control to social media needs to be considered. Here the situation is interesting as the access control is managed by a third party (the social media provider) and the enterprise has therefore very limited possibility to control content the content that is published about it.

Access, Search and Content Delivery

This solution offering is very tightly connected to the Web Content Management, as this solution offering contains the elements to make web content accessible.

Enterprise Portals and Information Delivery

Since the purpose of Web content is to be published, Enterprise portals and Information delivery systems are almost inseparable of web content management. There are mainly 2 different integration models for delivery of Web content: Portals and standalone systems: portals integrate content and data from different sources into 1 graphical and user interface. In a standalone system the content is collected and formatted inside 1 integrated web content and delivery system.

Enterprise Search

While enterprise search is relevant to make Web content accessible, its importance must be put into proportion. Based on user behavior, public search engines like google must be regarded as more important for general access to public web content. Enterprise search must therefore be regarded as of secondary importance relative to accessibility and indexing of the web content to third party search engines (AKA Search Engine Optimization).

Next to general search, there is also subject area specific search capabilities that need to be considered as access mechanisms. They serve mostly to guide users and visitors to more or less structured content. Examples for highly structured content are product catalogues, less structured content are knowledge sharing platforms that are ususally centered around a specific subject. Traditionally, the interaction between content and search is the application of taxonomies and classifications to the content as structured metadata. While this is a backbone for structuring of Webcontent and making it accessible to the user community, there are new forms of structuring developing that are based on search technologies itself. The merging of indexing and and logging technologies allows to transform individual search activities into user generated taxonomies and content, so that the interaction between search user and content is generating new content and structured data.

Mobile Device Access

For mobile device access there are 2 main integrations towards web content existing:

• Template based delivery of web content for mobile devices: the portal or webserver recognizes the mobile devise and reformats the existing content for the mobile access device. This model is mainly used for general available content, where the initial content production cost and content integrity across devices is of predominant importance.
• Separate content management: based on the channel specific content is produced and distributed separately to Web or mobile portals. This model is popular especially in the production of Marketing campaigns for smartphones, mainly due to the limited development times, where timing and graphical optimization of the content is more important than systematic IM aspects.

Extending the Open Methodology through Solution Offerings

Extending the Open Methodology through Solution Offerings

Listed below are proposed extensions to the Overall Implementation Guide to meet the requirements for this Solution Offering:

Potential Activity Changes

Overall Business Strategy for Information Development

The Business Strategy for web content management should involve knowledge exchange requirements.

Solution Architecture

This activity will likely be generalised to better cover solution offerings