5 ways to better web governance in Local Government

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Local Government 5 ways Web Governance can help

Web Governance is a system for managing an online presence in a controlled & orderly way.

It delivers the certainty & stability your Web Team needs to focus on online goals.

But, the problem for many local authorities is that Web Governance is not working.

Why?

Lots of units do work completely unrelated to

each other, e.g. libraries vs. road repair

– yet they all need to be catered for online.

Exceptionally diverse There are many stakeholder groups,

councillors, unions & others – & all want

a say in your web presence.

Special interests

There may be scores of employees from

many locations who contribute to online

– & more come on-stream all the time.

Staff as web publishers

Local government is It has many

And it relies heavily on

Many new sites & social networks

Huge content volumes

Massive user engagement

High user expectations

High internal expectations

Online Ambition

More importantly, recent years

have seen a MASSIVE growth in

Promotion

Social

Networks

Strategy

Planning

Content Design

Build

Hosting Performance

Review

Publishing Feedback

Technical

monitoring

QA

Data & security mgt

Change

control

Governance policies

KPIs

Architecture

mgt

Testing

Approve

activity

Systems

Teams

Budget

Roles

Tools

Procedures

Documentation

Skills

Manpower

Technology Performance

monitoring

Missing manpower or skills

Missing essential tools

Redundant roles or structures

Unclear decision making authority

Unclear leadership

Web Management

But this growth has often

not been matched by change in

If a Web Team has little control, individual

departments can do their own thing.

Lots of solo-runs Solo-runs mean that everyone is a designer

& every department does things differently.

Design & technology

Some departments maintain great

content & others let things fall apart.

Online quality

This has led to symptoms like Great diversity of

Huge range of

Huge demands & no authority lead to

fractious relations & high staff turnover.

Dissatisfied staff Governance issues lead to delays,

errors, uncertainty & poorer web quality.

Unhappy users

Errors & delays put the reputation of your Local

Authority at risk … & the public is watching.

Anxious managers

This has led to And

And

Something new is needed.

The ‘Web Governance Framework’ can help re-assert your control over online.

Here are 5 ways it can help you…

The Web Governance Framework helps you impose order on online management.

1

Promotion

Social

Networks

Strategy

Performance monitoring

Planning

Content Design

Build

Hosting

Performance

Review

Publishing Feedback

Technical

monitoring

QA

Data & security mgt

Change control

Governance rules

KPIs

Architecture

mgt

Testing

Approve activity

Systems

Teams

Budget

Roles

Tools

Procedures

Documentation

Skills

Manpower

Technology

For many teams, operations are a confusing mess of seemingly disparate elements.

The Framework organises all these elements into just 2 key categories…

Activities

Resources

Activities describe everything you must do to manage an online presence effectively.

Resources describe everything you must have to make the Activities happen.

These 2 categories list everything your Web Team is responsible for regarding Web Governance.

This includes…

Promotion

Social

Networks

Content Design

Build

Hosting

Performance

Review

Publishing Feedback

Technical

monitoring

QA

Data & security mgt

KPIs

Testing

Systems

Teams

Budget

Roles

Tools

Procedures

Documentation

Skills

Manpower

Technology

Planning Change control

Architecture

mgt

Set strategy & KPIs

Set policy & standards

Acquire resource & budget

Police online activity

The Activities of Leadership

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Promotion

Social

Networks

Hosting

Performance

Publishing Feedback

Technical

monitoring

QA

Data & security mgt

KPIs

Testing

Systems

Teams

Budget

Roles

Tools

Procedures

Documentation

Skills

Manpower

Technology

Architecture

mgt

Change control

Planning

Content

Design

Build

Testing

Hosting

Review

Publicity

The Activities of Development

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Hosting

Technical

monitoring

Data & security mgt

Testing

Systems

Teams

Budget

Roles

Tools

Procedures

Documentation

Skills

Manpower

Technology

Architecture

mgt

Publishing

Quality assurance

Engagement monitoring

Performance monitoring

Infrastructure monitoring

Change control

The Activities of Maintenance

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Promotion

Testing

Systems

Teams

Budget

Roles

Tools

Procedures

Documentation

Skills

Manpower

Technology

Architecture selection

Architecture management

Performance management

Data & security management

The Activities of Infrastructure

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Promotion

Testing

Systems

Budget

Roles

Tools

Procedures

Documentation

Technology

Manpower

Skills

Roles & responsibilities

Teams & authority

The Resources of People

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Systems

Budget

Tools

Technology

Testing

Roles

Standards

Procedures

Policies

Documentation

The Resources of Processes

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Budget

Testing

Roles

Technology

Systems

Software

The Resources of Tools

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Salaries

Software

Other, e.g. contractors

The Resources of Budget

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Using these categories means you can visualise online operations in a new, simpler way.

For more detail, go to diffily.com/articles/model.htm

The Web Governance Framework helps you identify gaps in Activities & Resources.

2

Every component of Activity & Resource needs to happen on all sites. They are non-negotiable.

Where gaps do occur, they increase the risk that something will go wrong with your site.

Technology

Systems If essential software is missing,

manual effort is needed - which

can result in unexpected issues.

Delays & Errors Missing tools result in

Software

Example #1…

Publishing

Quality assurance

Engagement monitoring

Performance monitoring

Infrastructure monitoring

If Change Control is ignored - it

could lead to a marketing campaign

clashing with server downtime.

Potential Disaster A missing task spells

Change control

Example #2…

The Framework allows you to audit operations & quickly fill in any gaps.

The Web Governance Framework helps you plan a better balance of Activity vs. Resource.

3

Governance stability depends on having enough Resource to cope with Activity.

Getting this balance right depends on knowing the Scale of your management burden.

Scale is the third & central component of the Web Governance Framework.

Scale measures the Size, Complexity & levels of Engagement of your online presence.

Scale Size measures the management impact of core operations, especially content.

Complexity measures the management impact of technology, especially hosting.

Engagement measures the management impact of traffic, comments & feedback.

Activities describe everything you must do to manage an online presence effectively.

Resources describe everything you must have to make the Activities happen.

Activities

Resources

For more about Scale, go to diffily.com/governance

By combining Scale with Activity & Resource you can plan a better operational balance.

Here’s how…

1. First, measure your online Scale Determine how Big, Busy & Complex your web

presence is & thus calculate your management burden.

2. Estimate the resulting Activity Based on management burden, you can predict how

detailed each Activity will be & how often it will occur.

1. First, measure your online Scale Determine how Big, Busy & Complex your web

presence is & thus calculate your management burden.

2. Estimate the resulting Activity Based on management burden, you can predict how

detailed each Activity will be & how often it will occur.

1. First, measure your online Scale Determine how Big, Busy & Complex your web

presence is & thus calculate your management burden.

3. Calculate your required Resource Finally, based on the estimate of Activity, you can

predict the level of Resourcing you’ll need in support.

Using the 3 elements of the Framework we

can predict the investment needed to

oversee the many subsites & social

networking presences it has online.

Birmingham City For example, let’s take

Why Birmingham? It is the first, large UK city alphabetically.

1. Birmingham is large in Scale Birmingham City Council generates lots of content,

has high user engagement & complex technology.

1. Birmingham is large in Scale Birmingham City Council generates lots of content,

has high user engagement & complex technology.

2. Operational Activity is high Scale predicts a large burden – which means lots of

detailed Activity should be happening very frequently.

1. Birmingham is large in Scale Birmingham City Council generates lots of content,

has high user engagement & complex technology.

2. Operational Activity is high Scale predicts a large burden – which means lots of

detailed Activity should be happening very frequently.

3. High Resource investment is needed To support this level of Activity, Birmingham needs many

highly skilled staff in structured teams, with specialist tools,

following formal processes & a large web budget.

The next step is to organise these elements into a cohesive Web Governance system.

The Framework can help you build a better system of Web Governance.

4

Usefully, the Web Governance Framework allows you to benchmark your online operations with others of similar Scale.

E.g. Vodafone.co.uk

- High engagement

- Lots of content

- Complex technology

E.g. Birmingham.ac.uk

- High engagement

- Lots of content

- Complex technology Birmingham.gov.uk

- High engagement

- Lots of content

- Complex technology

Common skills include:

- Code

- Design

- Content

Typically, Large-Scale operations need a large Web Team to expedite Activity & supervise how Resource is deployed.

Manpower/staffing can be

upwards of 10+ FTEs.*

Team structures & leadership

systems are often as shown.

Ownership often resides with IT,

Communications or Corp. Affairs.

Common tools include CMS,

QA, Analytics, Monitoring & more.

- Marketing

- Analytics

- Technical

*FTE = Full Time Equivalents. i.e. everyone contributing to

online adds up to about 10 fulltime staff, even though there are (much) less than 10 people on the team.

Central

Digital

Unit

The clearest trend in Web Governance in Large-Scale operations is towards Centralised Digital Units.

IT

HR

Comms

Roads

Library

Housing

Waste

Water

http://www.capgemini-consulting.com/digital-transformation-review-4

Older silo based operations centred on

organizational units are coming

under increasing pressure to change.

Didier Bonnet, Cap Gemini. “Accelerating Digital Transformation”

UK central government has shown how successful a Digital Unit with clear authority can be.

The challenge is to mirror this in Local Government too.

The Framework can help you build a case for investment in Web Governance.

5

If your strategy demands a large web presence, you need a large Governance system to support it.

Anything else is wishful thinking…

A bigger

online presence

Which means more

detailed & frequent Activity

Which requires more

investment in Resource.

Means a bigger

management burden

Staff with the right tools & guidance, will

produce consistently better content.

Improved quality A web team with clear authority, can get

more done & has higher productivity.

Lower costs

Clear roles, coherent teams & defined processes

reduce the chances of embarrassing errors.

Reduced risk

It leads to And to

Better Web Governance brings many advantages…

And to

Stable operations ensures investment can be

directed at activities that actually produce value.

Happier management And

Stable operations means more effort can

go into producing content users want.

Happier users Stable operations creates clarity for

staff which leads to reduced conflict.

Happier staff This means And

Ultimately, it creates the stability you need to focus on online goals.

Step 3. Optimise Step 2. Organise Step 1. Discover

“We have lots of quality issues

& my Web Team is in revolt!

We need to start learning

more about Web Governance.”

“My Local Authority is finally

onboard with Web Governance.

I now need to get organised &

ensure we are well equipped.”

“Our Web Governance is good,

but I am sure we can do better.

We need more ways to

optimise for even better RoI.”

Of course, Rome was not built in a day. Web Governance is a journey.

Here are a few ways I can help on this journey.

Infographic: “Web

Governance is broken”

The Website

Manager’s Handbook

Web Content

Production Calculator

Something’s wrong with Web Governance. Find out

how we got into this mess - and how to get out of it.

The original guide! This book gives you a

practical model for the management of any site.

Calculate the time & effort you need to produce,

migrate and review new online content.

Free download at Diffily.com/governance

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I am a consultant & commentator on Web Governance.

To arrange a free webinar, go to www.diffily.com

Hi. I’m Shane Diffily.

My book, ‘The Website Manager’s Handbook’ has been described by Gerry

McGovern as … “Very clear and well written. I'm sure that someone

managing particularly a large website would find it genuinely useful.”

With 15 years' experience in digital operations, I have helped organisations

in both the public & private sectors improve online management.

Early in 2014, I produced a 6-part online training course in Web Governance

for leading technology vendor, Siteimprove.com.

To discuss any online management issues … Email me: shane@diffily.com

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A free presentation from www.diffily.com