by Shane Diffily

A Practical Model of Web Governance

Web Governance is the discipline that describes how to manage a website in a controlled & orderly way.

At its most basic, Web Governance can be described in terms of just 2 components. These are…

Governance Activities

These describe everything you must do to manage a website effectively.

Governance Resources

These describe everything you must have to support the above activities.

These 2 components apply to ALL websites, no matter how big or small they are, or what they are about.

The only thing that changes is the granularity & sophistication by which they are implemented.

The way you recognise differences in granularity & sophistication is by measuring the Scale of your website.

Scale is a measure the Size, Busy-ness & Complexity of your site. These are defined as…

Size Size is an estimate of the total effort needed to expedite core site operations, e.g. maintenance & development.

Complexity Complexity is a measure of the sophistication of the content & other technologies used on a site, including hosting.

Busy-ness (Activity)

Busy-ness is a measure of online engagement based on the metric of Unique Visitors.

Note, it is also common to find sites of Mixed Scale, e.g. a site that requires lots of maintenance & has a complex architecture - but is low in visitor activity.

See http://www.diffily.com/articles/websitescale.htm for more.

In rough terms, most sites can be described as being Small, Medium or Large in Scale, for example…

Governance Activities + Governance Resources + Website Scale = A Model of Web Governance…

How it works

Example #1

Example #2

PS - Scale is also a benchmark that allows you to compare your website against any other, no matter what it is about. For example…

Note: Even though these sites are from 2 very different industries - because they are of the same Scale - they will inevitably share many of the same characteristics of Web

Governance, incl. team skills, staffing, etc.

2 sites of the same

scale

Macmillan Cancer Charity = Mid-Scale BHS online retailer = Mid-Scale

Most Web Governance questions are about People, so let’s see what it means…

The Governance Resource “People” is composed of 3 elements…

Skills What type of expertise do I need to carry out all Governance activity?

Manpower How many staff &/or contractors do I need to complete all Governance activity?

Team Structure

How to I organise my people - & how do I allocate roles & responsibilities?

Skills The same core skills are seen again & again on all sites, chiefly Design, Code & Content.

Manpower This sequence shows how core skill requirements evolve & become more

sophisticated as a site grows in ‘Scale’.

Manpower Manpower grows as Scale grows, in order to complete activity & deliver specialist tasks.

1-2 FTEs

8-12 FTEs

+/-20 FTEs

FTE = Full Time Equivalent

Skills What type of expertise do I need to carry out all Governance activity?

Manpower How many staff &/or contractors do I need to complete all Governance activity?

Team Structure

The “right” team structure is exceptionally difficult to pin down – but there are some emergent patterns.

A Small Scale Team typically

has a small number of web

generalists organised into an

informal structure.

This team can easily get by with Freeware tools, informal processes and a small budget.

Web Team for a Small Scale Site

This team also requires tools, documented procedures, formal meetings, fairly big budget, etc.

A Mid-Scale Team typically has

several specialist staff organised

into a formal structure.

Web Team for a Mid Scale Site

This team requires expensive tools, documented procedures, formal meetings, big budget, etc.

This team also requires tools, documented procedures, formal meetings, fairly big budget, etc.

A Large-Scale Team typically

has many specialist staff

organised into a formal structure.

Web Team for a Large Scale Site

This team also requires expensive tools, documented procedures, formal meetings, big budget, etc.

Compiled by © Shane Diffily

Shane is the author of The Website Manager's Handbook, the first practical guide to Web Governance. Shane has also been published by the respected online design journals A List Apart and SmartInsights.com. Recently he has contributed to a new paper by Forrester Research on the subject of Digital Governance (release Dec 2012).

For FREE Web Governance downloads & more, visit www.diffily.com