Copyright C.M. Mitchell Consulting 2005 Taxonomy 101 – Why is it so Important? Presented by: Carol Mitchell

Copyright C.M. Mitchell Consulting 2005 Agenda The Role of Taxonomy Developing a Taxonomy Taxonomy Example/Discussion What is Taxonomy? Questions

Copyright C.M. Mitchell Consulting 2005 Taxonomy - Wikipedia  Taxonomy is the practice and science of classification. classification  Taxonomies, which are composed of taxonomic units known as taxa (singular taxon), are frequently hierarchical in structure, commonly displaying parent-child relationships.taxonhierarchical  Used in scientific community for a long time to organize and categorize life forms

Copyright C.M. Mitchell Consulting 2005 Additional Definitions  Enterprise Content Management - (ECM)  The technologies used to capture, store, preserve and deliver content and documents and content related to organizational processes.  Classification –  Process of analyzing content and organizing it with the additional assignment of metadata tags (indexes for retrieval)  Thesaurus –  Network of word meanings and relationships – used to assist in the understanding of a taxonomy

Copyright C.M. Mitchell Consulting 2005 Taxonomy Fundamentals  Taxonomy  Classification of data into an organized structure that can be understood by anyone with the need to retrieve content when and where needed  Not consistent between industries, businesses – ambiguous  Requires constant evaluation for changes within an organization  Enterprise taxonomies support the identification, organization, retrieval, retention of all documents across an organization.

Copyright C.M. Mitchell Consulting 2005 Why Taxonomy?  Content – Structured vs. Unstructured  Approximately 80% of content is unstructured  Explosion of data – Information overload  Multiple repositories, file shares, filing cabinets, desktop files  Information scattered, duplicated, valuable space used to store information  No management of one of the most important business assets – information

Copyright C.M. Mitchell Consulting 2005 Why Taxonomy? After years of using technology to digitize and automate the routing of documents, it is estimated that professionals are still spending more time looking for information than using it. Delphi Group’s research reveals that lack of organization of information is the number one problem in information management and retrieval, in the opinion of business professionals Need to control, secure, route, deliver, store and destroy content (Use of ECM)

Copyright C.M. Mitchell Consulting 2005 Taxonomy helps ‘find’ data Source: Delphi Group

Copyright C.M. Mitchell Consulting 2005 Taxonomy’s Role in ECM  Increase Worker Productivity  Customer Service, routing of electronic content  Eliminate Redundancy  Reusable information  Maximize value of Intellectual assets  Less impact when knowledge workers leave  Legal Discovery/Compliance  One copy of the ‘Truth”  Better decision making  More knowledge is better

Copyright C.M. Mitchell Consulting 2005 Feeling Lucky?  Finding information in your organization should not be about feeling lucky… Browse vs Search

Copyright C.M. Mitchell Consulting 2005 User’s MUST Understand the Taxonomy I’m sorry but we don’t sell pop I would like to place an order for 100 cans of pop, please.

Copyright C.M. Mitchell Consulting 2005 Taxonomy is the Core of ECM Search Portals Compliance Content Taxonomy Process Taxonomy to ECM is as critical as the technology itself

Copyright C.M. Mitchell Consulting 2005 The Importance of Taxonomy Records/content inventories shorten taxonomy development and feed ECM systems Content systems manage all unstructured content for the enterprise and are reflective of the enterprise taxonomy Standard taxonomy improves overall search capabilities improving efficiency Taxonomy driven portals provide an intuitive interface that guides/drives access to corporate information resources. Search Portals Compliance Content Taxonomy Process Taxonomy decreases the overall time to automate core processes by standardizing interface definitions

Copyright C.M. Mitchell Consulting 2005 Taxonomy Development – Getting Started  Most importantly, understand strategic corporate vision  Senior management support!  Identify Stakeholders  Management, supervisors, end-users  Define Goals, scope of project  Enterprise? Proof of Concept?  Gather content information  Questionnaires, interviews, follow document flows, content storage locations (file drawers, PC’s Fileshares, Filestores, etc.)

Copyright C.M. Mitchell Consulting 2005 Taxonomy Information Sources  Records Management Plan  A good place to start, but …. Not all content is a corporate “record”  Existing Document Storage Structure  Incorporate legacy system concepts and eliminate or rename as appropriate  Day-to-day business processes  Reiterations of content  Information Lifecycle

Copyright C.M. Mitchell Consulting 2005 Taxonomy Types  Determine type of Taxonomy - Based on:  Functional usage  Business units  Subject matters  Location  Pros/Cons of each  Probably best for ECM, but requires corporate buy-in  Easy to understand but changes frequently  Good or research but probably not specific enough  Good for international companies, difficult to centralize

Copyright C.M. Mitchell Consulting 2005 Developing a Taxonomy  Top Down vs. Bottom-Up – Use Both!  Analyze business areas  Analyze the content of the documents  Development Options  Start with file plan, current filing systems, etc. using a spreadsheet  Use ECM vendor industry pre-defined taxonomies and modify as needed  Purchase a pre-defined taxonomy and modify  Buy automated software to analyze documents

Copyright C.M. Mitchell Consulting 2005 Developing a Taxonomy  Categories  Need for flexibility due to constant change  Consistent User Experience (Expert vs. Novice)  Metadata  Used for searching  Used to indicate relationships  Used to track content lifecycles  Should ALWAYS be validated and auto-populated as much as possible

Copyright C.M. Mitchell Consulting 2005 Taxonomy Components  A Taxonomy needs to include:  Thesaurus to assist users with vocabulary of taxonomy  Relationships between content, fields or terms (hierarchical, equivalence, and associative)  Security – roles and responsibilities  Retention periods  Storage locations  Enterprise relationship

Copyright C.M. Mitchell Consulting 2005 Governance Committee  Taxonomy – Living Document  Define Committee Members  Management, Records Management, Legal, Compliance, End Users  Define Roles and Responsibilities  Changes to taxonomy, metadata, terms  Policies/Procedures  Reviewing and approving changes  Addressing issues with taxonomy, etc.

Copyright C.M. Mitchell Consulting 2005 Delivering a Taxonomy  Build a Taxonomy Prototype  Review with users  Create a controlled vocabulary and/or thesaurus  Define metadata to reflect relationships  Train Users/Roll-out a Pilot  Get user feedback  Revise  Define on-going Governance Committee  Control changes as content changes

Copyright C.M. Mitchell Consulting 2005 Resources for you to use…  Dublin Core  ISO  XMI  AIIM  ARMA  NISO  UNSPSC

Copyright C.M. Mitchell Consulting 2005 Contracts – Example Taxonomy Discussion Contracts:  Business Unit? Function?  Type of contract (lease, software, employee, vendor, customer, etc.)  Should all contracts be stored together whether in process or finalized?  How does legal access contracts versus business users?  Subsequent contracts that nullify old ones  How do you identify and reuse contract clauses?

Copyright C.M. Mitchell Consulting 2005 Questions? C.M. Mitchell Consulting (303)