Abbey National Bank's content lifecycle

Feature

posted 31 Aug 2004 in Volume 1 Issue 3

Eyes on the prize

You create it, nurture it, use it and eventually, you lose it – and no, it’s not your hair. The riddle that is your enterprise’s content lifecycle can be tricky to figure out, but doing exactly that is an essential process for any business. Peter Greenfield, online channels manager at Abbey National Bank, explains how to do so.

The principle behind content management is simple, but the practice may not be as straightforward as it seems. Any form of successful management demands understanding of what you want to control and the result you want to achieve. So to achieve successful content management, there must be an understanding of what the material is and how it is used.

To begin, you need to make decisions about what content you actually want to manage. For example, is it necessary to review all content an organisation uses or just that which could be used in litigation? You will also need to understand the type of content you are managing so you can determine the control points in its lifecycle and the levels of accessibility you will require at any point during it. Doing such necessary groundwork before implementing a content-management system always seems to be the key to success.

At Abbey, we have been able to learn these lessons over a prolonged period. We first introduced online technical manuals in 1994, when it was more a case of placing paper documents on a computer screen.

By the time intranets came along, the ability to manage content was already being considered. Originally the documents were on screen, but were managed through a paper-based system. But as that particular content concerned policy and procedure, an audit responsibility existed. It did not take long for authors to want to manage everything within one system.

Early management systems were not flexible enough for a company with large vetting lists and volatile content and a separate system was eventually built in-house. It is only recently that content and process management could be integrated, making all information manageable, rather than only technical content.

As a rule of thumb, only ten per cent of an organisation’s current content can be considered structured. This probably gives a good benchmark as to how much content needs to be reviewed and allows organisations to make decisions on the level of management they want to achieve. With the current climate of compliance and corporate governance, there is a need to control more information than ever before. But it is worth remembering management brings a heavy maintenance cost, and once you’re doing it, it’s not easy to stop. So while recognising the need to control and manage the corporate content asset, it’s also worth acknowledging the sense of not managing content when you don’t need to.

A lifecycle defined
We traditionally tend to think of content as something personal – something we either own or are party to. We rarely think of it is a corporate asset, something that actually belongs to the organisation we work for. If you can think of it this way (almost as you would a piece of hardware, such as a computer), then you can think about who owns it, who can use it, what circumstances you can use it in, whether you can change it, and when it will be considered too old for use and can be changed or renewed. When considering the content lifecycle, it does help to think about something physical, rather than something intellectual. With this in mind, the simplest view of a content lifecycle is:

In the world of a computer this might be: request, purchase, install, de-install and throw away. As you can imagine, between install and de-install there will be a number of patches and upgrades to be made, which I’ll address later. Although the above is a simple lifecycle with no maintenance, it immediately reveals a number of issues for consideration:

Authorities for decision points such as inception, release and removal;
Currency of content for release, affect on other documents and archiving;
Relationships and connections to other documents.

The simple lifecycle assumes that content will not be amended, but you still need to consider how it affects other information around it. For example, you might need to consider if content needs to be authorised before it is even worked upon. This might be the case for corporate information or for documents with a legal requirement; if not, the content will almost certainly need to be agreed upon before it is released and read. This process needs to take into account business decisions, such as timing with the release of a product, process or other supporting material.

When we think about currency, we want to ensure content is relevant and correct at the time of issue, and to keep it that way. If there is related information or the content is replacing existing information, old content will have to be amended or removed. Currency needs to be considered in the workflow and will lead to consideration of related content, how it is recognised and co-ordinated, and what other types of content need to be considered.

More complexity
The simple, linear lifecycle above is suitable for a document that will have no change or maintenance during its life. But as soon as you consider change, the lifecycle becomes slightly more complex (see figure 1).

The circular lifecycle takes into account that content in a document will have several changes during its useful existence. In real terms, the document is held live while the first process of request, authorship and publication takes place in the background, before the document is replaced on approval. For larger documents or volatile content there may be several iterations going around the loop at the same time. These points will also need to be considered when looking at the content lifecycle:

Authorities for decision points such as inception, change, amendment and removal;
Currency of document for release and maintenance, effect on other documents and archiving;
Relationships and connections to other documents during the content lifecycle, especially if content is used in conjunction with information used externally and internally;
Change of the content and tracking that change.

The more complex cycle brings the element of change and re-issue into consideration. Therefore, authority levels will need to take into account the need to authorise change and how that will affect other content. You will also need to consider how any change will be identified and whether content within each document will need to have separate owners. In this case, the authority list will become more complex and subject to change.

Like most companies, Abbey had a culture of everyone wanting to see everything, which leads to large vetting lists and long discussions, but rarely an improved document. When considering workflow, we were able to challenge the size of vetting lists. As an authority was attached to each person on the list, their position became more high profile. This does not prevent us offering copies for information, but makes clear what actions need to be taken and how the publishing team will react to comment. We now find that users also prefer this approach, while system prompts make it quite clear the action required and the timescales to be worked against. In a current development, these prompts will be by e-mail, which will help integrate the process into a user’s day-to-day work applications.

Currency will also become more complex and the release of certain parts of the document will need to be considered. This can become fairly difficult if a document is quite large and various parts of it are in several release states. More complex is the issue of multiple updates being carried out but not being released in a linear time fashion. In other words, the content may be in several rough versions but the third draft may be released before the second. The lifecycle and workflow must take these considerations into account.

At Abbey this is a particular problem, as the gestation period of banking products are comparatively short compared to, for example, engineering products. Our current library can be subject to up to 40 per cent change in any year, so there may be a number of iterations against any content at any time. We have overcome this by recognising different levels of change and accepting that systems cannot wholly provide the answer; responsibility must remain with the originator and author of information to check the correct integration of change. Therefore, we require the system to inform the author of the state of documents, what amendments are going ahead and who has checked out information.

As content becomes more complex, it will also have related information. This will be in the form of summary documents, reference material, supporting information or strategy documents. Related content may be in electronic (e-mail or web) form or stored content or hard copy. The related documents will need to be recorded in the lifecycle for amendment and change, and their familial relationships be understood and recorded. This might not seem a natural part of the lifecycle, but think in terms of the computer I mentioned earlier. It’s obvious the computer must talk to others on the network and therefore must have the same updates and software installed throughout its lifetime.

As enterprise content-management (ECM) systems are implemented and the content they hold increases in scope, the ability to relate content will become more widespread. At Abbey, we are working on bringing all content into a single system and integrating disparate information so that true ECM can be achieved. The ECM system will still recognise various levels of content and control and be able to keep this information in the background so that it does not affect a user’s view. The ultimate aim would be to access any piece of corporate information using a single style of navigation and presentation.

As a subset of authority, the content lifecycle will reveal a number of touch points and management points. These are places where some form of intervention takes place. For example, it may be that a decision (such as going through a vetting loop again) or approval point be made, or a release date changed. It is these points that will lead to decisions being made on the level of management and authority clearance required and the type of content an organisation actually wants to manage. As with any management decision, the level of management and authority will depend on the importance of the information and the effect of it not being available or seen by outside parties. These decisions also affect the level of content management as well as the level of organisational authority required.

Some of the questions you may want to ask are: What will happen to the organisation if this content is not available for five hours? What will happen if the information is lost? What will happen if the information is incorrect or out of date? And what will happen if a third party sees the information?

When you ask yourself at what level you want to manage the content, you will need to consider the levels of authority and the type of actions needed. Typically, you will be looking at actions such as read only, read for comment, read for approval, read for edit, read to authorise and read to publish. The majority of these actions will also give a choice over whether they should be mandatory or not. As pointed out earlier, this is a purely practical issue. Not everyone should be required to offer comment, but some individuals must offer comment or approval to maintain corporate governance.

Authorities will also have a responsibility attached to them, so authority may be required for a piece of content or a full document, either through business unit coverage or by authority level.

You may end up with something nearer this at the end of the day (see figure 2).

Types of content
Content will tend to fall into category types, which helps identify the type of content lifecycle. As each lifecycle will need management and updating, it is wise to have no more lifecycles to manage than necessary. In looking at a content lifecycle it seems to make sense to see if similar content has been managed before. But be aware of getting the balancebetween reducing the number of cycles to manage and making one size fit all. You must ensure that content is placed in an appropriate managed lifecycle but that you do not duplicate unnecessarily. Experience has shown that it may be better to change a process for content so that it is over-managed rather than invent something else to manage. At the same time it is a great opportunity to challenge any business process that is in place.

When the business communications area of Abbey was working on ISO9000 certification, it identified a single lifecycle for every document type it produced.

This added a level of complexity to the certification that was thought unnecessary. Eventually, somebody remarked that all the documents were really subject to the same business requirement. From that moment, it was easy to rationalise the number of lifecycles because the view had changed from the document to the process. The number of managed lifecycles was reduced from five to one and the registration was achieved at first pass.

When asking what content you want to manage, three distinct category types are often identified: information, people and processes.

Information will include items such as web content, knowledge management, corporate governance, regulated documents and e-mail;
People will include items such as human-resource policy, recruitment, holidays, knowledge and skill, and special interest groups;
Process will include items such as project collaboration, ISO 9000, contract management, manufacturing and new products.

Getting started
The development of a lifecycle for content will involve various opinions and views. Workshops probably give the best results and typically these should involve authors and stakeholders. The act of identifying owners and stakeholders alone will begin the identification of suitable lifecycle and management levels. In the workshop, try to bear in mind a tangible idea of managing (like the computer life) and make sure representatives of the relevant business area are involved. It will be easy to over- complicate the business, so always go back and challenge each step, always asking what the effect on the business will be.

I’ve attempted to cover everything you may have to consider in a document lifecycle, including all actions and responsibilities that will have to be discussed at every decision or authorisation point. It may seem daunting, but it all breaks down to a number of elements. All of these items must be considered as part of the lifecycle and, as this will control the management of the content throughout its end-to-end usage, it is essential every item is fully considered.

Points to remember:

Consider the content;
Which authority levels are relevant?
Which lifecycle fits?
What relationships does the content have?
What are the management points in the lifecycle?
What work instructions are required?

Manage the lifecycle.

Questions to ask:

Where does the content sit in the business and what affect would its non-availability have?
How and where does the content contribute to a business process and what affect would its non-currency or non-availability have?
What is the status of the content within the business – legal, regulatory, audit, reference or information?
Who owns the document and the information held within it?
What are the organisation’s retention policies and how do they affect the content?

The success of your ECM strategy will depend on the detail applied to content. So while this may seem a chore, it is fundamental to the delivery. As organisations do change, the correct lifecycles will need constant review. The outcomes of those reviews may well ensure successful and stable business processes in the future by providing quality content and information.