Changing content management mindset

In my previous Industry Insight I concluded that each organisation has a different personality, so the approaches to content management must be adapted accordingly to suit the business.

So how does a company approach a content management project? What are some critical activities or thoughts that should be considered? Over time, I will explore them all, but today I will discuss something that is critically undervalued or not emphasised enough.

A content management project touches everyone in the organisation because it changes the way people work with data in their daily working lives. Years ago, people created information themselves to share with their superior or immediate colleagues. Today, many people are comfortable with the idea of having to work in teams - collaborating - to create information. The question is whether those people are ready to willingly share the information they have created with everyone else in the organisation.

Achieving this mindset change is not about implementing technology; it`s about changing the way people want to work with data, and share information with each other.

The success of a content management project is inextricably intertwined with the success of users embracing the concept of sharing information willingly. And that ideal doesn`t necessarily come easily.

When I chat with users, they are quick to tell me they are looking for an easy way to find information that has been created by everyone in the organisation. When I chat to technologists, they are quick to assert how content management and search tools can "easily address that requirement". Technology is the vehicle through which this objective is delivered, but solving the problem is about more than that. People are not really accustomed to making their documents available for searching. It`s important to get sharing working before search will even start to deliver.

Achieving this mindset change is not about implementing technology; it`s about changing the way people want to work with data, and share information with each other.

Grant Hodgkinson, business development director at Mint Net

Sharing content, and managing the results of that activity across the enterprise, is but one of the objectives of a content management initiative. Admittedly, it is an important objective: shared content is "searchable" content. Searchable content improves user productivity if the right information can be found by the right user.

In a project that means sharing content across the enterprise, executive sponsorship is simply not enough - that`s just entry to the game. Rather, it is through executive involvement that employees will be led to share content among each other. Sometimes, just getting the management of an organisation to share information reaps huge rewards, and the converse will only lead to huge uphill battles.

Every organisation across the world today is impacted by legislation that governs compliance. Beyond the operational aspects that do impact organisations, content management programmes can help address compliance needs.

For example, a bank`s need to store all documents pertaining to a customer and being able to retrieve it quickly denotes a content management requirement. An organisation recording how well it complies with prescribed operational processes speaks to content management.

Government departments are affected also. Good governance means transparency: not only does information have to be shared internally, but information must be readily available to the outside world too.

Once again, implementing the best technology will not help if users do not change their behaviour. And users are not going to change their behaviour unless they have been given guidance and careful management throughout the process.

Generally speaking, users are comfortable with the need to work together to create information, and technology has helped to facilitate this.

To give such a project the best chance of success, however, you should think about small beginnings with incremental and advertised growth. In a large organisation, consider beginning with the department that has the most pressing need for searching for information among each other.

To change the behaviour of 20 people who grasp the benefits of content management and are willing to see the project through is far easier than tackling the entire organisation at once.

Deliver quick wins and demonstrate the benefits of the system to principals, the executive team, and to other employees. That gives something that technology cannot deliver: buy-in. It builds momentum in the organisation and other departments will clamour to get it themselves - the solution eventually starts to evangelise itself. Start the project with business units that want to share information, want the benefits of content management, and are ultimately prepared to work through the change management with you. Use the success of a small start to the project as the focus of an internal marketing and advertising campaign to the rest of the organisation.