Why Governance Matters More Than Most Organizations Realize

Governance Matters 

Who should organizations blame when publishing becomes slow? It’s usually the website platform.

The content is stuck waiting for approvals. All the departments struggle to update their information, and there is a general lack of understanding about who is responsible for the various sections of the website. Management starts talking about a redesign or investing in new technology.

That makes sense because the website is what’s visible, and so it attracts negative attention when things are working as smoothly as they should be.

And yet, it’s not always the platform that’s the real issue.

The hard truth is that your organization can spend a lot of money on an updated website only to discover—whoops—that publishing really hasn’t improved much.

You change your technology, but what you didn’t change are the processes.

And that’s where everyone learns the painful lesson that website publishing challenges really all come back to the idea of governance.

Governance Is about Clarity, Not Control

The word “governance” is loaded with negative connotations. People hear it and start to think of annoying restrictions and bureaucracy and a painful approval process. The assumption is that it means more rules and it will slow down publishing when in fact, the reality is that it does just the opposite.

Governance, done well, creates clarity. It answers the important questions before problems occur:

Who owns this content?

Who is responsible for approving changes?

What are the standards for creating and posting new content?

Without such answers being asked and answered, the people will fill the gaps themselves. And that’s a scary thought.

When departments create their own processes and teams develop their own publishing habits, and there are different assumptions across the staff about responsibilities and expectations, even insignificant decisions will become issues over time. Governance provides a shared understanding and framework that allows everyone to be on the same page, thus reducing errors and frustrations.

Growth Creates Complexity

Lots of orgs can work successfully for years with informal publishing processes and a small website with just a few contributors really doesn’t require extensive governance. Everyone is within shouting distance, and questions can be answered quickly. Who owns what might be as simple as, “If it’s not me, it must be him.” Growth changes all of that.

As you see growth and your website expands to accommodate it, more departments develop and get involved. Soon, new contributors need access, new programs are launched, the content library grows. It’s all great and exciting, and then problems start popping up.

Department Alpha updates a page, but Department Beta assumes its ownership. Similar information gets posted in multiple locations, and one gets updated while the other doesn’t. Menus grow because each department wants their content prominently featured and users struggle to find their way around. Content is poorly organized and improperly tagged, and the search feature stops giving accurate results. These aren’t a result of some technology failure; they are process failures, and the larger your organization gets, the more important governance maintains order.

The Hidden Cost of Unclear Ownership

When a website undergoes a content audit, the most common result is that the staff is unclear about who “owns” certain content. Your mature website probably contains valuable content that was created long ago, possibly by people who have changed roles, moved departments, or left the organization. The content remains because it was never handed over to another staffer; no one is responsible for determining its ongoing value or accuracy. And this creates confusion, frustration, and, not inconsequentially, risk.

Your visitors end up with outdated or even conflicting information. The staff slows down what should be regular updates because of confusion about who is to approve it. What happens is that a lot of time and energy is poured into content creation and yet content ownership is slighted.

You have a tasty and beautiful dish, but who is going to deliver it to the restaurant guest? The creation of the content without an appointed waiter leaves your dish cooling in the kitchen. Organizations that have clear ownership procedures discover that their website content improves immediately because accountability now has a name attached to it and outdated information gets dealt with much quicker.

Why Publishing Delays Usually Have Nothing to Do with Your CMS

Too often, organizations see a slow publishing cycle as a CMS problem. Staff complain about confusing admin screens, poor usability, and cumbersome publishing steps. Management might sympathize but fail to realize that even after the content is properly formatted and put into place, it still has to be reviewed by a small group, all of whom have a legitimate reason for adding their thoughts and approval.

A piece of content may require a review from leadership, the lawyer, and a subject matter expert or two. That’s challenging enough, and then there is the additional challenge that a clear process isn’t in place.

Who starts the review process?

Who gives the final approval?

What happens when reviewer #3 has changes?

In what timeframe are these changes to be made and approved?

Who does #3 hand it off to?

A process that should take hours or days can stretch into weeks.

The goal should be for everyone to know their role and what is expected at each stage of the process.

Permissions Should Reflect Responsibility

Another area where governance makes a huge difference is with user permissions. Organizations tend to fall into one of two extremes. The first extreme is giving broad access to a large number of users because this seems to be easier than managing such permissions more carefully. The other extreme is locking down access so that simple updates are more time-consuming than needed. Neither of these approaches scales well.

The best path is to align your permissions with responsibility. So, Bob should have the authority to manage the content he “owns.” But Bob should also not have unrestricted access outside of his area of responsibility. When permissions properly align with ownership, expectations become clear, frustrations are reduced, and accuracy and speed increase. Thus, the various teams can work independently within a framework that is both protective of the website and fulfills the needs of the organization to steadily move forward.

Consistency Builds Credibility

Visitors to your website are not thinking about governance, but they will notice its absence. When one department creates a page using the garden flower layout, and another uses the page called “modern goth,” a disconnect occurs. Structure, navigation, styles, calls to action, etc. all need to be in sync. And of course, that’s the goal, and everyone would say that’s what happens . . . until it doesn’t.

Users may not be able to explain why a website feels disjointed, but they notice when different sections feel disconnected from one another. This is one reason many enterprise organizations have embraced component-based content models and design systems.

Your visitors may not be able to explain why your website seems disjointed, but they sure do notice it, and it’s not a feeling that leads to confidence in your organization. One helpful solution is embracing component-based content models and design systems. These give contributors the freedom to move, but the structure tells them where the boundaries are for that movement.

The goal isn’t uniformity for its own sake, but it’s to create a predictable user experience that infuses trust in your visitors.

Governance Creates Organizational Confidence

One of the additional benefits of governance is organizational confidence; the leadership has faith that the content is accurate, the comm teams are confident that the standards are being adhered to, content contributors are confident in their role in the publishing process, and importantly, your visitors are confident in the information they consume.

The flip side is the uncertainty that spreads without governance. Hesitations, frustrations, wasted time, paralysis even. Governance reduces or even eliminates that, and your organization becomes much more effective.

Governance Makes Growth Sustainable

Of course, many orgs can perform quite well without governance for a while. But when the desired growth comes, more contributors, more content, additional stakeholders mean the complexity of the process increases. What worked with a 200-page website starts breaking down when it reaches 2,000 pages. The informality stops working, and chaos ensues.

What Good Governance Actually Looks Like

The term governance doesn’t immediately make people think simpler, an easier process because they might imagine committees, more meetings, approval chains, complex documentation. But the reality is that effective governance is much simpler.

We are just trying to answer some basic questions:

Who owns each section of the website?

Who has authority to publish changes?

What are the standards for this new content?

How often should older content be reviewed, and what happens when this content becomes outdated?

If you can answer those questions, you are far ahead of orgs with elaborate governance documents that nobody follows anymore.

How Most Organizations Gradually Build Governance

Don’t try to solve governance all at once by creating large committees and writing manuals and processes for every conceivable scenario. That frustrates everyone and will probably get dropped over time.

First: Identify content owners. This accountability solves lots of problems.

Second: Document publishing responsibilities. Who can publish, who can review, who approves. This happens informally now; governance makes it visible to all and eliminates confusion

Third: Establish content standards to include accessibility requirements, page templates, naming conventions, document policies, and branding guidelines. As staff come and go, this document ensures consistency and accuracy.

Only after these foundations are in place do you start investing in more advanced workflow automation and permission structures.

Governance matures over time.

New Target Can Help You

New Target can help your organization build such governance models that support your long-term growth. Through content audits, ownership mapping, workflow design, role-based permissions, and editorial standards, we help nonprofits, associations, government agencies, and businesses large and small create publishing environments that are both scalable and sustainable. Contact us.