Pcl Sharepoint Ia Case Study 2001-18-11

8/12/2019 Pcl Sharepoint Ia Case Study 2001-18-11

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Copyright 2010 Earley & Associates, Inc.

SharePoint 2010Information Architecture

An Earley & Associates Case Study


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2Copyright 2010 Earley & Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

One of North Americas largest construction companies

Over $6 billion in operations across three key markets: Civil Infrastructure

Heavy Industrial

Buildings

3,300 full-time professional and administrative staff

More than 6,500 hourly trades people

Located in over two dozen major North Americancenters across

United States, including Alaska and the HawaiianIslands

Canada

Caribbean

PCL Construction


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Abundance of content led to information overload

Information Architecture did not mitigate the effects of the large volume

Navigation & content presentation complex/confusing

Web part driven placement of content confused publisher understanding of the physicalclassification of information

Confusing use of labels in global and sectional navigation

Search service failure resulted in the disappearance of data

Everything looked the same and was highly textual

Poor search experience

Out of the box implementation

Main method of navigation (due to broken IA)

Perceived by many as a Random Document Generator

Information Management Challenges


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Overly complex metadata structure

Ambiguous terminology

Used to drive content presentation / force display of content in search driven web partslocated throughout the site

Led to gaming and reluctance

Deconstructed by publishers who mis-tagged content to obtain more prominent display of content

Unsure where published content items would show up leading publishers to become skeptical oftagging

Resulted in a heavy reliance on a single person

Clear lack of governance

Highly decentralized environment

High levels of departmental and geographical autonomy

Information Management Challenges Continued


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Project Approach - 3 Phases

Phase 1SharePoint, Taxonomy

& IA Assessment(duration - 1 month)

Phase 2SharePoint, Taxonomy

& IA Development(duration - 3.5 months)

Phase 3IA Refinement, System

Development &Implementation Support

Research & Discover

End User Survey One on one interviews

Stakeholder working sessions Content Audit / Inventory Migration & Tagging Approach

Design & Develop

Framework/Development

Metadata Schema Vocabulary Development

Use Cases/Scenarios Workflow/Personalization Site Map & Wireframes

Test & Validate

Findability Tagging Navigation User Interface

Taxonomy

IA


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Evaluation of existing environment from two perspectives:

Taxonomy & Information Architecture

Technical Infrastructure (specifically SharePoint)

Two potential options:

Migrate the existing intranet application to SharePoint 2007 as is

Implement an entirely new architecture on SharePoint 2007, or potentially wait for 2010

Applicability of existing taxonomy to a new environment and identification ofnecessary improvements and/or changes

Readiness for migration to SharePoint 2007 (or 2010)

Viability of simply migrating the intranet with limited change to the existing function or form

Assess opportunities for improvement as it relates to intranet usage and informationfindability

Recommendations for improvement over the short, mid and long term

Identify easy wins to improve the user experience in the short term

Phase 1 - Assessment & Roadmap


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Discussion with senior level stakeholders to identify and define an overall strategyfor the intranet

Identify Key Descriptors of current and future states

describe what you feel the intranet is today

The intranet is seen as the central location for organizational information but there is a generalfrustration around findability through both search and navigation as well as a lack of credibilityattributed for whats there.

describe what you feel the intranet needs to be in the future

The intranet was described as a visually appealing and easily accessible one-stop destination forfinding people and information all the while engaging employees and promoting the organizations

culture.

Create a vision by completing the following three statements:

The goal of the intranet is toin a way thatso that

Executive & Senior Management Workshop

The mission of PCL Connect is to provide an authoritative,

com prehensive, and collaborat ive one-stop destination for t imely

and accurate inform ation in a way that is easy to find, secure, and

customized so that emplo yees have access to the inform ation and

knowledge they need to help them work m ore product ively and

develop stronger connections with their peers


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Gain an understanding of intranet usage patterns and the perception of the overallvalue of information

Delve into the content lifecycle to better understand both creation and consumptionneeds

Discuss processes around collaboration

Identify major pain points currently affecting

the environment

Individual & Group Interviews


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Taxonomy and metadata

Heuristic evaluation of

existing environment against30 best practices

Application and integration

Analysis of application oftaxonomy and metadata inthe existing environment

Search/navigation analysis

Review and evaluation of sitesearch and overall structure

Information Architecture - Evaluation & Analysis


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Fundamentally many things wrongwith existing IA

Poor navigation & search Taxonomy & metadata too

complex to be understood

Re-build the foundation to

Improve the user experience(publishing & consumption)

Support integration of newrequirements

Ensure future scalability

Wait for SharePoint 2010and functionality offered by Fast Search

Findings - Outcome & Recommendations


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Requirements & Analysis

End user survey

One on one interviews Stakeholder/project team working sessions

Content audit/inventory

Migration & tagging approach

Design

Taxonomy framework, vocabulary development, content type definition & metadataschema

Use cases/user scenarios

Workflows, processes, audience analysis, roles & responsibilities

Site map/wireframes - logical hierarchy, navigation and search

Testing

Taxonomy Validation

Wireframes & Site Map

Phase 2 - Redesign


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Quick 15 question survey intended to elicit data on:

User demographics

Intranet usage patterns Perceived value of content

Perceived of value of Intranet

Recruit participants for future activities

End User Survey

74.20%

22.00%

3.10%

0.60%

0.10%

Daily

WeeklyMonthly

Few times a year

Never

E.G. How often do you use

the Intranet (PCL Connects)as part of your job?

900 responses fromacross the organization!


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Gain an understanding of various roles in the organization

Identify tasks/activities that each performs

Discover how current technology supports these tasks

Uncover perspectives on the Intranet & value of content

Validate survey data

Stakeholder Interviews & Working Sessions

Findings included: IA Categorization Requirement definition Source OOTB Custom + complexity

3rd

party add-on? Priority


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Review a sampling of representative content to identify scope and basic contentstructure (assess existing content types)

Topic tagging analysis (usage patterns)

User focused evaluations (popular/most used content)

Content Analysis


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Content inventories - to improve findability of organizational content you need toknow at a high level:

Where it is located Estimated volume (how much there is)

What types of content exist

Who the intended audiences are

What structure it has including metadata attributes and taxonomy

Identification of special characteristics

Title, owner, metadata, format, ROT (redundant,outdated or trivial), content type, target audience,destination, etc.

Content format

Conversion to web content from document centric

Migration overview

Roles & responsibilities

Tasks & timelines

Recommendations

Migration Strategy


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How can we help publishers with the content clean up process?

Creation of job aids/guidelines on what to look for/what to keep including

management through automated reporting

Content Inventories

Included: Document Type Ownership Source Location View and/or Edit Ready for migration?


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Capture, define and document organizational taxonomy

Preferred terms, hierarchy, relationships, vocabularies, etc.

Taxonomy - Framework & Development

Globally: 11 Content Types 15 Standard Vocabularies 50 Metadata Fields


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Grouped together conceptually related taxonomies

Generated individual csv files for direct import into the Term Store Management Tool

Groups & Term Sets

Group = Project Execution

Term Sets:

Construction Expertise (flat) Construction Topic (hierarchical) CSI Code (hierarchical) Delivery Method (flat) Project Activity (hierarchical) Project Code (hierarchical)


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Define a core set of metadata elements required to be applied to all documentsupon their creation or upload

Document metadata requirements for unique document types

Metadata Schema

Schema included: Field names Column types Descriptions Mandatory requirement

Multi-value assignment Data source (lookup)


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Audience definition and mapping of job roles

Passive personalization design Push of predefined content targeted to users based on audience

Audience Analysis & Personalization

Matrix included: System identification Preferred content types Topical interests Required content Related roles


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Active personalization design

Pull of content to users based on personal preference

Audience Analysis & Personalization

User SelectedPreferences


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Provide specific descriptions of custom interactions between actors and the systemincluding the design of workflow & automation of process improvement

Identify What the interaction is

Who the actors are

What triggers the interaction

Pre and post-conditions

Expected and alternate flows

Exceptions

Use Cases & Scenarios


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Identification of a repeatable sequence of connected steps intended for theautomation of a business process

Typically used for the management of information lifecycles and enforcement ofgovernance. Includes:

Automated process design for promotion, submission, approval, retention, archival anddeletion of content

Workflow & Document Lifecycles


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Provide a visual illustration of the logical organization of site content

Basis for primary and secondary navigation design

Site Map Design


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To provide visual representations of content layout and identification of whereelements will be placed within page templates

Indicate notes regarding functionality such as taxonomy integration

Wireframe Design


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Annotation for how each of the bits on each wireframe is intended to function

Wireframe Design


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Design of Global, Sectional and Administrative navigation (header/footer)

Key considerations

What information is common to all site users? (identify candidates for centralizationforms, policies, procedures etc.)

What information is common to specific areas only?

Where will content physically live?

Where does information need to be displayed in multiple places, and how? (polyhierarchy)

Are there specific areas that require secured access? For who?

Can standardization of architectures for similar conceptual constructs, such asdepartments or geographies be developed?

Navigation Design


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Improve findability by leveraging consistently tagged metadata surfaced via facetsin a variety of ways

Leveraging Taxonomy to Improve Search

Faceted SearchDesign


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Display of facets defined as part of the taxonomy for a specific content type (Forms)

Scoped to include forms, templates & checklists only

Leveraging Taxonomy & Search Scopes

Faceted Search forForms & Templates Only


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Display of topics defined as part of the taxonomy

Execute scoped search when clicked

Leveraging Taxonomy as Navigation

A-Z Index(topic taxonomy)


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Design of wireframes for mobile access (e.g. Blackberry)

Creating a Mobile Experience

View bothCorporate andDistrict news

Search forPeople


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Samsung Jack (Windows Mobile Device) and the iPhone

Creating a Mobile Experience


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Users asked to walk through scenarios that test the design of the taxonomy,navigation & user interface

Testing Taxonomy, Navigation & IA

Wireframe

Site Map

Scenario & Tasks


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Visual Design - People Page (draft v2.0)


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Taxonomy development & information architecture enabled:

A multifaceted approach to information findability

Process for capturing & disseminating organizational memory Automation of information management lifecycle to ensure relevance and timeliness of

content

Creation of consistent and standardized organizational terminology

Design of powerful and reliable enterprise search across multiple data repositories

Passive and active personalization

Summary

Q i ?


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Questions?

Jeff Carr

Senior Information Architect & SearchConsultant780-819-7275

[email protected]

Seth [email protected] me on twitter: sethearleyConnect with me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/sethearley
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.linkedin.com/in/sethearleyhttp://www.linkedin.com/in/sethearleymailto:[email protected]:[email protected]

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Pcl Sharepoint Ia Case Study 2001-18-11