I gave this this presentation at the Collab365 Global Conference in September 2020. It covers the main elements you need to consider in developing an information architecture and management plan for Office 365
W.H.Bender Quote 62 - Always strive to be a Hospitality Service professional
The art of information architecture in Office 365
1. The Art of Information Architecture in
Microsoft 365
Speaker: Simon Rawson
PowerMark Solutions
2. Agenda and Summary
• Information management – document, records and knowledge management
• Information architecture and strategy – 300 level
• Technology – mainly 100 level – however there are a few pearls
• Audience
• Information and Records Managers
• Solution and Information Architects
• Information Strategy Planners
• Business Analysts
• CIO and CKO
• Themes
• Information lifecycle, strategy and models
• Business processes and value
• Compliance
• Adoption and governance
• Cortex and AI
4. The Purpose of Information Governance
“Information governance, or IG, is the set of multi-disciplinary structures,
policies, procedures, processes and controls implemented to manage
information at an enterprise level, supporting an organization's immediate
and future regulatory, legal, risk, environmental and operational
requirements.
IG encompasses more than traditional records management. It
incorporates privacy attributes, electronic discovery requirements, storage
optimization, and metadata management.”
- Wikipedia
• Governance, risk and compliance approach – a defensive model
5. Session
Outcomes
Better understand business processes
How to track and document processes
Understand the process-content interplay
Know the skills and roles to roll it out successfully
Have a model for organisational and business unit engagement you can adapt
to your organisation
Satisfy information management needs for retention and disposal
Ways to engage and obtain senior management sponsorship
6. Digital Transformation,
Collaboration or What?
• “Delivery of products and services in an increasingly effective and
efficient way”
• “Provide self-service to consumers through better information and
automation”
• “Improved collaboration”
• “Paperless work processes”
• “Remote working”
• You need to define what digital transformation means to you and
your organisation – and to your key processes
• You need to find ‘real world’ processes which make a difference –
the ones which make people sit up and take notice
7. • Information management strategy
• Foundation IM infrastructure capability
• Well managed business content (documents, images, audio-visual)
• Taxonomy and classification
• Document approval-type workflow
• Seamless records management
• Seamless intranet
• Collaboration
• Extended capability
• Forms and business process workflow
• Retention for business applications
• Business intelligence & reporting
• Inter-organisation collaboration
• Client engagement
• Automated publishing - web and print
• Processes and content spanning intra- and Internet sites, and mobilised
versions of your content and forms
Foundational Elements
Skills:
• People
• Process
• Change
• Information and knowledge curation
• Technology
8. • Executive sponsorship
• Initial and ongoing budget
• IM strategy linked to corporate strategy - VISION
• Architecture
• Common IA design and processes…
• …keyed to organisational strategy
• Extended for individual business units
• Organisational change
• More effective and efficient business processes
• Training
• More effective communications and collaboration
• Behavioural change
• Support
• Deployment & migration support during implementation
• Governance and support model, processes and tools
• Ongoing business and technical support
• Knowing what the technology can be made to do in support of business processes
Success Factors / Outcomes
Time!!
9. Information and Process Architecture Model
Foundation for ‘On-the-Ground’ Information Management and Digital Service Delivery
13. Demo Recap and Recommendations
• Metadata
• Lifecycle
• Classification – drives search AND retention
• Metadata defaults – reduces the need for users to manually enter metadata
• The importance and use of templates
• Per location defaults – key workflow to update of properties associated with folders and
document sets
• Content types
• Use the Content Type Hub to manage metadata and content types across all Teams and
SharePoint site collections
• Add Content Types to libraries to provision metadata
• Keep content types to a minimum – use metadata to distinguish and classify documents
• Keep it consistent and simple – don’t rely on manually applied metadata
• When configuring IA to support business processes – think about what metadata
supports reporting and performance management
14. Information management is multi-disciplinary and strategic
Information
Management
Process /
Quality
Office
Digital
Transformation
Information
Technology
Marketing &
Comms
Knowledge
Mgmnt
HR /
Training
Customer
Support
Customer
Self
Service
Digital
Transformation Business Units
Key Stakeholders
16. • Print
• Transactional documents (invoices, purchase orders etc)
• Knowledge management
• Learning Management Systems (LMS) content
• Contracts and other legal information
• Procurement information / documentation about products or services your organisation acquires
• Product / service accreditations and other content sourced externally
• Human Resource information management (eg. Certifications and training etc)
• Board and senior management (reports, spreadsheet models etc)
• Internet-based references and resources
• Extranets / partners’ information management systems
Scope: How Well Does M365 Cover
18. These Are a Few of My Favourite Things #1
Qualitem.com
• Live Publish
• Word Document to web content (SharePoint,
WordPress etc)
• Other products for classic to modern page
migration, metadata entry into Office apps
and a few others
19. These Are a Few of My Favourite Things #2
CircleT.com.au
• Kasama
• Cortex ready
• Digital resource center and
modern refinable search
• Other product components
(digital signatures,
document compilation)
• Once-off licence and
installed your tenant
• Find it in AppSource
20. These Are a Few of My Favourite Things #3
Typefi.com
• Typefi Publish
• Single-source publishing
• MS Office and XML source published to e-
book/EPUB, print, web, HTML, and DAISY
• AI-driven automated layout and typesetting
• 80% faster, less manual effort
• SharePoint integrated
• Used by United Nations, US and EU governments,
ISO and many commercial publications
MS Word to…
…and
21. My Contact Details
Simon Rawson
Principal Consultant, Information Management
PowerMark Solutions
simon@powermark.net.au
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonrawson/
www.powermark.net.au
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Notas del editor
Too many organisations jump straight into Teams and Microsoft 365 without really considering how they want technology to transform their processes and that they’ll use the platform for the foreseeable future. Most are headed for information sprawl.
This session will cover information process vision setting, senior management buy-in, information lifecycles, search, and continuous improvement - and what you need in the IA to support it.
Although this session focuses on high level information models and concepts, I’ll demonstrate how the concepts can be put into practice and the implications for compliance, security, search and why it’s an important component for the later introduction of AI and Cortex knowledge management.
I’m not going to read through the list of bullet points on my slides. The bullet points are for you to read and for your later consumption. Attendees dialling into this session will have the presentation deck available. Included in the deck are an extensive set of notes.
Feel free to ask questions in the chat window. Although the session is recorded, I’m responding to questions in real time. I’ll leave my contact details and am happy to help after the Collab365 Global Conference concludes.
All too often M365 projects fail to deliver the business value the could and end up instead with uncontrolled sprawl. It’s never too late to retrofit an information architecture into M365, however the longer you go without it, the more difficult it becomes.
The main purpose of the presentation is to give you:
Tools for information strategy planning and engagement with executive management
Show why M365 is strategically important
Give you models for business information governance and support – as opposed to technical solution governance
The presentation and demonstration is going to move pretty quickly – so brace yourselves!
Don’t you hate those presentations full of wonderful, high fidelity images – which don’t give you anything to take away and use?
OK – there is a purpose to this image. It’s a working bulldozer, scarred with signs of use. All the content in these notes has been put into practice in one project or another over more than 10 years.
Feel free to use any of the material. Just remember to attribute it. Any material I’ve borrowed from elsewhere is credited.
This image by the is not a real bulldozer, it’s an image from Grand Theft Auto and is no doubt copyright. Not that there was a copyright notice on the Wikia siteI found it. That’s an issues about information and knowledge management. The context of information you find is sometimes more important than the information itself. More to come on that topic in a couple of slides.
Traditional definitions of information governance focus on risk and compliance. This misses the opportunity side of the coin, which is the better use of information and solutions such as Microsoft 365 to improve business processes effectiveness.
The biggest roadblocks preventing maximally effective deployment of M365 is lack of executive management support, leading to insufficient budget and staffing to be able to do it right. You won’t get that talking about risk and compliance. You’ve got a far better chance of getting that support by talking about how M365 underpins organisational strategy and contributes to innovation and ongoing improvement of your processes, services and products.
I compare the complexity and cost of introducing new information management systems to the complexity of introducing a new ERP system. The 2 main differences are that IM solutions typically get a 10th or less of the budget, and not everyone in an organisation is impacted by the introduction of a new ERP.
‘Digital Transformation’ (in inverted commas)
‘Digital Transformation’ has been with us since the dawn of information technology. IT’s goal has always been to automate information-based business processes.
Key points:
If support systems directly support business processes then satisfaction and longevity will be high
The benefits of ‘digital transformation’ are achieved not by general solution features (e.g. improved collaboration and search), but how well they support discrete key processes
Change management and engagement is key to success (as illustrated in the examples below)
Of primary importance is knowing how your technology can be made to work and using it to directly support business processes. Most innovation is not in technology, but the use to which it is put
All processes are not equal. Understanding what processes are key and focussing on them gives you a good business case…
…and reason for management support
‘There ain’t nothin’ new under the sun, but if the term ‘digital transformation’ provides the budget needed to make ECM projects successful, then play that card
The examples below would be regarded as digital transformation. All are projects on which I have worked.
Example scenario #1
Aviation schedule planning
Planned changes to schedule to accommodate maintenance and passenger demand variation
Versions of potential schedule changes – visually represented
Communicated to engineering, crewing and operations control – remote operations
Acceptance / rejection + reasons captured
Final approval
Release and updated in reservations system
Notifications to booking hall staff to contact impacted passengers
Version history on flights
When flights were changed
The reason – and whether the change was primary or consequential
Comments
The year was 1981. 1986 saw an X-Windows graphical user interface allowing schedulers to drag and drop flights between aircraft but still used the original system in the back end. The system continued in operation with QANTAS for 30 years. Custom built but based on solid information management principles. The graphical UI was built using native X-Windows functionality.
The business case for the GUI was conservatively estimated using discounted cash flow analysis at 3500% ROI. The head of Finance said, “ We can’t put that up to the Board for approval. They would demand to know why we hadn’t done it before.” He put a line through it and pencilled in 35% ROI.
Example #2
ASX participants library, accessible through the ASX website
Listed companies submit one or more documents or lodgements
Some are confidential
Others are available to the public
ASX listing rules and support resources for listed companies
Notification, review and approval workflow for all submitted documents
Public, searchable face, internally workflowed
All functionality based on standard ECM product configuration, with a little lipstick on the public facing UI
The year was 2000. The product was Intranet Solutions IntraDoc. Finally de-commissioned 16 years later in favour of an expanded system.
Example #3
Sensis CitySearch, a guide to bars, venues and events
Clients could list and advertise
Content syndicated from a number of external sources
External face allowed the public to search acts, venues and locations
Internal face:
Content curation
Advertiser account management, used by the Call Centre
3 months after implementation unsolicited feedback was received from the Call Centre saying it was the best system they’d ever been given
It wasn’t a good system – it was jerry-rigged based on what you could do using standard back-end admin features in a web content management system
The system was configured to meet Call Centre process requirements
The engagement, change management, training and immediate post-implementation support was exceptional
Process-centricity
By ‘real world’ processes I mean business processes as opposed to information management processes. A document approval process is an IM process – and nobody gets particularly excited. That’s reflected in the slide quotes about definitions of Digital Transformation.
A travel request and approval, based on a form is getting better. An incident management handling process, using a SharePoint Document Set with a number of pre-provisioned documents such as an online report form, incident investigation report template, with provision for managing outcomes and lessons learned is even more exciting (assuming it’s not duplicating what’s done in other systems). Both examples can be built using ‘out of the box’ (OOB) functionality. OOB you can even build rudimentary reporting e.g. how many travel requests per month, aggregate value of travel, number of incidents by month and severity.
By the end of this presentation / workshop, you’ll:
Better understand business processes
How to track and document processes
Understand the process-content interplay
Know the skills and roles to roll it out successfully
Have a model for organisational and business unit engagement you can adapt to your organisation
Satisfy information management needs for retention and disposal
Ways to engage and obtain senior management sponsorship
The single most valuable person is he or she who understands how the technology can be made to work and solve business problems. Not necessarily how to do it technically. This could be an information management practitioner, a business or process analyst who also understands (or works closely with) IM, or anyone with the aptitude and interest. Most likely it’s going to be a small, close knit team who will be at the heart of your ECM or digital transformation project.
The single most valuable thing this person or team should do, is ensure those skills are fostered in the champions, power users or local administrators in business units. Business units who are knowledgeable about the use of the technology and see the value for their business processes will be engaged. Adoption will not be an issue.
What’s missing from this slide?
Skills and organisational capability!
SharePoint demands:
Solid tech support and skills in the SharePoint development framework
Information and knowledge curation
Process
Change management and training
Communications
It takes time to:
Build skills
Develop experience
Change behaviour
The executive management / organisational strategic layer is your business case.
The inner layers are your change management plan, information architecture, and common working processes
The underpinning principle is that all information and knowledge is generated by processes, for the support or consumption by other processes.
Processes are managed, and understanding and tuning process performance is Management’s key responsibility. Hence Processes and Performance are at the heart of the model. Performance encapsulates elements such as management style, organisational culture, and metrics and reporting about Process performance.
An organisation’s key goal is successful production and delivery of Products and / or Services. This is the reason an organisation exists. You can justifiably argue that Products and Services are central, however from a management perspective, all Products and Services are planned, built and delivered by Processes. Products and Services are delivered by People and Organisational capability.
Surrounding all activities is Communication. Within process instances there is Collaboration (which is generally semi-formalised and subject to established Processes and governance) and Conversations (ad hoc and informal, but absolutely critical for success, and supported by a variety of means such as email, phone calls, ‘water cooler’ chats, and social computing).
Every time a Process is exercised, it’s participants know how well it worked or if there were issues encountered. Processes should ideally have defined steps for review, capturing lessons learned and identifying potential improvements. From the Conversations, mechanisms should be available to capture knowledge and suggestions for improvement. These mechanisms should extend to all participants, including eternal customers.
The responsibility for capturing valuable knowledge and ideas for improvement rests with all participants. Simple mechanisms should be built into information management systems to capture feedback, or be built into every automated workflow. The mechanisms ad management processes for doing so form part of the Benefits Realisation and Innovation Strategy. How this is communicated and delivered forms part of the Communications and Training Strategies. (See later in the presentation on Innovation Management for processes associated with managing and actioning feedback, innovation and improvement.)
Version control
Approval
Review
Action assignment & tracking
Feedback
Status (Draft, Review Draft, Released, Withdrawn, Copy)
Tagging (according to a process-oriented taxonomy)
Document tags or types (e.g. for a ‘policy’, what type such as policy, procedure, guideline, work instruction, QRG, user guide etc)
Copy a link (held locally for convenience and context, but avoiding duplication)
Case management
Process maps / libraries
Corporate and directorate level resources
Policies and procedures
Templates
Processes
Retention and disposal
Sensitivity / protective markings
The Integrated Management System (IMS) or Operations Management System (OMS) is the set of compliance frameworks used within an organisation should be used as the primary taxonomy for information classification. Organisations with risky operations (such as mining, resources, transportation, construction and engineering) or which are heavily regulated (such as Financial Services and Health) are most likely to have an overarching IMS.
Not every organisation has a cohesive, organisation-wide IMS. However every organisation has its own policies and procedures dictating how it operates. Examples of compliance frameworks commonly folded into an IMS include its quality management system (e.g. ISO 9001), risk management (ISO 31000), environmental management (ISO 14001), occupational health and safety (ISO 18001), etc.
More information on IMS can be found at https://www.sciqual.com.au/what-integrated-management-system-ims. A local example of an IMS at work is BP’s OMS, which is the framework covering all operations, including in Australia. (Search on BP OMS finds BP templates for their procedures.)
If we consider policies and procedures etc, what sort of characteristics or processes apply?
Updates to policies or procedures will cascade to related content down the hierarchy – but not up
They apply for a date range (cf. content like meeting documents or financial transaction documents which apply for a given date
They should have a review date or review trigger event
Most policies will apply across the organisation…
…but may have departmental or business unit versions
Procedures and work instructions etc will generally be specific to business units
ISO 9001:2015 clause 4.4 Quality management systems and its processes requires an organisation to “maintain documented information to the extent necessary to support the operation of processes and retain documented information to the extent necessary to have confident that the processes are being carried out as planned.” (https://www.iso.org/files/live/sites/isoorg/files/archive/pdf/en/documented_information.pdf)
What’s missing from this slide?
Stereotypes are dangerous! But nonetheless…
Information Technology
Budget constrained and cost conscious (as opposed to value driven)
Little authority to drive business process improvement
Typically poor at ongoing organisational change management
Typically responsible through Finance or Corporate Services
Information Management
Generally a focus on records and compliance
Risk minimisation mindset as opposed to process improvement mindset
Little focus / skills in developing tacit knowledge and knowledge communities
Rarely appreciates or has authority over business processes
May be housed in Corporate Services or Company Secretariat
Knowledge Management
Focus on communities of practice and both tacit and explicit information
Process improvement / automation is generally outside the brief
The minutiae of managing records is generally outside the brief
Likely to be housed in Human Resources or Corporate Services
Marketing & Communications
Poor skills in business process improvement and the application of workflow / information technologies
Poor knowledge of the formal disciplines of Knowledge Management or Information Management
Generally operates on a delegated model of content information management
Good awareness of communication styles, accessibility and messaging
Process / Quality Office
Generally focussed on strategic processes and solutions
Rarely resourced or focused on providing front-line support and hands on training
Good at strategic alignment
Digital Transformation
Good at strategic alignment
Tends to focus on customer-centric processes and workflow
Tends to exclude Information Management and a vision for information management processes
Tends to be viewed as a separate project, rather than an ongoing business function integrally tied to other information management processes
Business Units
Own the information…
…and have first responsibility for its management and curation
Typically not aware of good information management practice or what their systems can be made to do
BU support roles are typically informal and not part of Position Descriptions…
…managerial roles SHOULD explicitly include this responsibility
Value is only realised when the systems and knowledge are put into play at the ‘coalface’, in user departments or in support of customers.
Effective systems rely on a complex hierarchy of internal stakeholders. The ordering of stakeholders on the left is significant, as shown in the next slide.
Responsibility for content and structure maintenance rests primarily with business units, supported by information management. IT should have no responsibility for content maintenance.
IT and Infrastructure Architecture responsibility rests with IT. Information Management, the Processes Office and Knowledge Management (if there is a dedicated business unit) are key stakeholders and business owners.
Responsibility for Information Architecture and processes rests with Information Management, the Process Office, and Knowledge Management.
Consumer business units (MARCOMMS, Customer Service and Business Units) should not be exposed to the underlying technology architecture, other than is needed for maintenance and configuration.
Which KM systems do participants use?
Consider:
Records Management
Document Management
Intranet
Internet
Collaboration
Business Process Management / Workflow
How completely does this set of technologies manage your information? Consider the full gamut of common processes, including:
Print
Transactional documents (invoices, purchase orders etc)
Learning Management Systems (LMS)
Contracts and other legal information
Procurement information / documentation about products or services your organisation acquires
Product / service accreditations
Human Resource information management (eg. Certifications and training etc)
Board and senior management (reports, spreadsheet models etc)
Internet-based references and resources
Extranets / partners’ information management systems
At this level the Governance Model is generic and can be applied to any information management project. Later stages which further detail each step become more ECM specific (in the case of this presentation, focused on ECM solutions incorporating Records Management, which is certainly not the case in every instance).
This framework has proved its worth in numerous projects. Like any framework, it must be adapted for each project and audience. Alternative frameworks may be just as applicable and valuable. The greatest risk to success is lack of an overarching governance framework that covers initiation through to ‘business as usual’ operation.
Live Publish is one of my favourite things because it supports singe-source publishing from Word documents (an author’s favourite tool) out to intranet / Internet web content management systems.
To make it work authors need to use templates and styles. Groups of files can be released on schedule, meaning that changes or new content can be applied to sections of a site as opposed to a page at a time.
Circle T is one of a small handful of Microsoft systems integrators appointed as a global Charter Partner on the Content Services program.
Circle T has a number of solutions available through Microsoft AppSource which add substantial value for information management in Office 365. In particular these are some of my favourite things:
Support for template search and template management. Template management and use is important, because:
Templates can be exposed on the New menu in Teams and SharePoint – streamlining business unit processes
Default metadata can be associated with templates, meaning the job of maintaining metadata is at least partly hidden from users
In the new world of AI and MS Graph, regular templates support automation and search
A digital asset center, used for corporate services and assets such as signatures, corporate templates etc
Automated document compilation – streamlines contracts, procurement documents, training material based on a set of standard clauses (clause bank)
All of the Circle T components are rigorously based on MS’ modern architecture and best practice. Unlike most component solutions for Office 365, Circle T components are installed in a client’s O365/Azure tenant for a once-off licencing fee (as opposed to ongoing subscriptions).
Many organisations still spend more money annually on print publications than electronic content. Much of the budget is sopped up on cycles of design, proof reading, revisions and editing. Content destined for print, web and e-book distribution relies on typesetters and graphic designers adding design to content typically written in MS Word.
Typefi Publish automates the design and layout work a graphic designer does in Adobe InDesign, enabling true single source, multiple output publishing. Typefi has changed publishing processes in a number of industry sectors including travel guides, pharmaceutical and drug publications and standards publishing.
If you’ve ever picked up a Lonely Planet, Fodors or Rough Guide you are seeing an example of 100% automated layout. Travel publishing is no longer economically or competitively viable using manual layout and design processes, and Typefi is used by all major travel guide publishers. Content is written and edited in Word, then editors trigger publication of review drafts and finals. The design process for a small publication such as a circular or brochure is a second or two.
Typefi is used for longer publications – the longest being approx. 30,000 pages, which takes several hours. All publications and notices published by the World Health Organisation and World Bank are produced by Typefi. All ISO international standards are published through Typefi.
Typefi is not for every publishing process – it’s not suited for highly designed or advertising driven publications (e.g. newspapers and retail catalogues) where each page has its own design treatment. However it’s very well suited to publications such as brochures, manuals and guides, information circulars, reports and standards, and publications published across a number of print, online and e-book formats.
Typefi has on-premise and cloud versions (based in both Azure and AWS) in Europe and the US.