​ Overview

At the core of Information Architecture (IA) is findability.  Web Information Architects achieve this by structuring and configuring the following four ‘systems’:  organization systems, navigation systems, labeling systems and search systems. 

Information Architecture and deliberate planning around findability is gaining momentum in organizations as they come to understand the impact that poor information architecture has on their organization.  Microsoft, having a pretty good pulse on corporate business challenges and the technology that helps mitigate them, also understands the importance of Information Architecture and findability by virtue of the fact that features dedicated to this domain have been included  in SharePoint 2010.  Some of these features include Managed Meta Data Services, the Term Store and Keywords. There are other features in 2010 as well that help organize content and make it findable.  My colleague Steve Tycast is in the middle of writing a blog series on the specific features just referenced.  Steve’s blogs will help you understand what these features are and how to configure them in SharePoint.  You can read them here: SharePoint 2010: Breaking Down More Barriers with Metadata Management and Tagging (Part 1) and SharePoint 2010:  Breaking Down More Barriers with Metadata Management and Tagging (Part 2).

The focus of this post is the application of the Term Store and its features from a business perspective…i.e. how does an organization make the term store work for them.  Consequently, this post assumes that you understand what these features are and you have a good sense of how to use them.   

Successful Term Store Set Up

To begin, let’s consider the following question:  What does the business have to do in terms of planning and role establishment to successfully utilize  Managed Metadata Services, Keywords and the Term Store for the purpose of creating an environment where content is easily findable?   I believe the answer is to establish roles and policies (governance).   

The roles associated with the Term Store are not complicated, but do require a bit of familiarity and learning.  Here they are:

Term Store Group Roles

Roles at the ‘Group Level’ (a group is the highest level in the term store hierarchy):

*Before you can create terms sets with managed keywords/metadata, you have to create a ‘Group(s)’ wherein the term set resides.

1.       Group Managers

2.       Contributors

Group Managers are those people that will have the authority to edit terms and term hierarchies within all term sets for the particular group they are managing.  They also have the authority to assign Contributors.  It is likely that a Group Manager may be a Vice President or Director of a business division.  This may not seem like a likely VP task the VP community is longing to be involved in; however, I think that as organizations begin to understand what a mess their intranet is and how prevalent the problem of finding content within the organization is (from the CEO down to the Information Worker who has been there 20 years), and what the cost to the company is, VP’s will be less likely to turn a blind eye.  In addition to this, the brunt of the work can and should be passed off to the Contributors. In this example, the Vice President could have oversight into what terms are being used as metadata for specific reports and documents related to his/her division while Contributors interview the business and work on creating a logical and effective Term Store.   

Quick side note:  the last company I was consulting at (Fortune 1000 and global company), a senior vice president took a great interest in findability of his own volition.  He knew that findability was an issue and wanted us to address it in our SharePoint architecture.  This individual would have made a great Group Manager.

Another likely candidate for Group Manager is an in-house Information Architect or someone with dedicated time to oversee Managed Metadata Services within SharePoint 2010.  This could be a SharePoint architect or even potentially a Business Analyst.  The key here is that the person needs to have time to spend on managing the Contributors within their group and to stay engaged in an oversight and planning role to help ensure successful on-going use of the Term Store.  Slapping this role onto someone’s plate and then not empowering the individual to dive into managing the Contributors in their group simply won’t work.  The Term Store will be weak, disorganized and likely won’t reflect the labels that information workers use to describe the content within their team or division.   

Contributors are those people that can edit terms and term hierarchies within all term sets for the  particular group they have been assigned contributor permissions.  In some organizations, there may not be any contributors as the Group Manager may assume this role as well.  In other organizations the likely candidates for Contributors are SharePoint Site Collection Administrators, Business Analysts, Team Managers, and in-house Information Architect and probably a few other possibilities.  Again, the key criteria for selection is that the person is allotted time to assist the Group Manager to execute the plan (metadata management) and has a clear understanding of how to work with the business to establish the company’s Term Store (Term Store = controlled vocabulary).   

Term Store Term Set Roles

Roles at the term set level:

3.       Owner

4.       Contact

5.       Stakeholders

The Owner of the term set can be one user or one group.  You cannot have multiple security principles as the Owner.  The Owner can view the terms in the term set and view configuration settings, but cannot change anything.  This is an interesting, possibly unnecessary role.  At this point, I can see the owner being (as the SharePoint on-screen description says) the primary user or group that interacts with the content that the specific term set was created for.  Prior to attending monthly governance meeting on findability and The Term Store, the Owner may review the terms in his term set.  At the governance meeting he would then offer suggestions for improvement and feedback that he collected at the Information Worker level over the course of the last month.  The Owner could help validate whether or not the Contributor is on track with creating a winning Term Set with accurate managed keywords. 

The Contact role is not set up in the Term Store to be a role per say.  There is no people picker to use to assign a person to the role.  Instead SharePoint asks you to enter an email address where keyword term suggestions and feedback can be sent.  At first blush, it seems to make sense to assign either the Group Manager or Contributor to be the Term Set Contact by entering his/her email address in this field.  This is an awesome feature that was built into SharePoint 2010 that is going to allow Information Workers to educate Term Store Contributors and Group Managers on the way they (information workers) think about the information they consume on a daily basis.  As any Information Architect will tell you, creating a functional system requires understanding your users.  Consequently the labels that information workers are using to tag documents and content are the labels we should be using when creating our top-down classification schemas (Term Store Managed Metadata is largely top down classification) .  The Contact feature within the Term Store is a simple yet powerful way for accomplishing this.  Information Workers can easily at the item level, reach out to the Term Store Contact and submit their suggestions and feedback concerning the managed metadata that is available for use on the particular content they are working with. 

The Stakeholders role…this is an interesting inclusion in the Term Store.   I like this role that SharePoint 2010 has made available in the Term Store because it’s a simple approach to help govern the concept of a controlled vocabulary (term store) which will support findability in the environment.  It does so by putting the Stakeholders names in SharePoint on a screen that others can see which fosters accountability and commitment to projects.  Who knows, it may encourage a Stakeholder to attend an Information Architecture or Term Store meeting. 

Tactics For Building Your Term Store Managed Metadata

O.K. so we’ve covered the roles that the Term Store makes available to us.  Proper selection of these roles is a good start.  Once, we have roles in place, what do Group Managers, Contributors,  Owners and Term Store Contacts actually do to create a successful Term Store?  This will likely vary from one organization to another.  Here is an example of one possible tactical approach:

Group Manager:  VP of a business unit.  This person empowers Contributors within his/her division to spend time interviewing the business to begin building a relevant term store.  Group Manager may also provide communication support by sending an email or series of emails to Information Workers within the division explaining how they will be interviewed for thoughts on keywords which help to describe the documents and content they touch on a routine basis. The Group Manager may also want to speak to his/her direct reports (typically Directors or middle Management) to explain the importance of metadata, findability and the coming interviews and have them pass the message on down to their direct reports (and so on and so forth). 

Contributors:  Business Analysts or Department Managers.  The Contributors will interview the business over time (won’t happen all at once) to gather the list of documentation that is currently in the system , the official and unofficial names used for the document and keywords the business uses when thinking of the documents in order to find them.  Contributors document these findings and use them to build the term store.  Contributors will also want to gather some type of data on how often and how much new content enters the system. 

Owners:  An Information Worker who has longevity in the company and understands much of the documentation being used in the department.  The Owner attends meetings with the Contributor and/or Group Manager to help validate the Contributors findings. 

Contact:  This is likely the Contributor. Here the Contributor receives feedback and suggestions for terms.  The ability for Information Workers to communicate this information at the right time and in the right way will help fill in the gaps between Contributor interviews of the business.

Stakeholders:  A committee of VPs.  Stakeholders can support the company’s goals to create an environment that supports findability by empowering Group Managers and Contributors to spend time on these tasks.  They can also help send a clear and consistent message to the business concerning the organizations efforts to create an environment where content is easily findable and the importance of doing so.

Ongoing Management of the Term Store

What policies should we use to govern our organizations Term Store (controlled vocabulary)? 

Again, the answer to this question will vary from one organization to another.  I personally always prefer less governance than more.  Typically, responsible people reduce the need for control and governance.  That being said, some governance is necessary.

My $0.02 on the matter is to have the Group Managers and Contributors meet once every week or 2 weeks for the first few months.  They can share their successes, failures and roadblocks.  As time goes on and they develop an understanding of how to best move forward with creating a relevant Term Store, less meetings will be required.  I think Stakeholders need to be involved at some level.  Again, this will vary from organization to organization.  At the end of the day, I have seen Stakeholders take a vested interest in people and projects and it goes a long way.  I believe the reason for this is simply that when our Stakeholders show care for something, we tend to care about it.  When our Stakeholders, by show lack of care for a particular deliverable or project, upon seeing this attitude in our Stakeholders, we immediately care less about it as well.  After all if those running the company don’t care about a particular project, why should I?

There should be a process for recording new types of content put into the system.  This process should include the Term Store Contributor and/or Group Manager.  This will allow these individuals the ability to create new managed keywords within days (or even the same day) of the new content entering the system.   Without a process established to cover this, the Term Store may start out strong and relevant, but will lose efficacy over time.  The Term Store like any other fluctuating system will change over time.  Establishing a policy and a role(s) to record this change and incorporate it into the Term Store is necessary for success.

Measuring the Success of Your Term Store Implementation

In closing, a possible measure of success for whether or not your Term Store is comprehensive and relevant would be:

1.       Have all content types (not SharePoint content types…rather general content types) within the organization been identified?

2.       Does your ‘content inventory’ include the official name and unofficial names for each content type (again just general content types)?

3.       Have these labels/terms been inputted into the Term Store?  If only 50% of them have, consider your Term Store 50% successful at best.  If 75%, consider your Term Store 75% successful at best.

4.       Have Stakeholders or others communicated to information workers how to tag content and offer suggestions?  Are the information workers trained at all?

5.       Are information workers suggesting keywords to the term set Contact?

6.       Is there a process in place to identify and record new content that comes into the system?

7.       Conduct interviews with 10-20 people concerning findability at the beginning of the implementation.  Instruct them to record any instance in which they have trouble finding a document or list or piece of content in the near future (next 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 8 weeks, etc.).  Have them record the amount of time it takes them to find the content as well as how often it happens.  Repeat this exercise in 6 months.  Look for patterns of improvement.  *I know this is easier said than done, therefore, take all participants out to lunch. Give them candy or whatever it takes to gain their participation.  Make it fun for them. Show them that you and the organization care about findability in the organization.    

One of the items not covered in this post is the Other Labels field in the Properties screen when a term in a term set is selected.  This is a powerful feature and is important for creating a successful, highly relevant Term Store.  Look for a post about this from myself or Steve Tycast in the near future!

I’m sure others out there have other great information regarding the Term Store and Information Architecture best practices.  I would love to hear them.  Please leave comments here or email me at:  bill.kuhn@rbaconsulting.com. 

Enjoy your week!