Key Points:
- Most inventories could be far more effective, especially by starting with what's easy & grounded on business questions ← tweet
- Content inventories should be searching for patterns rather than mind-numbing details ← tweet
- Iterate on inventories, considering new questions and whether it's worth getting the answers ← tweet
Inventories are far more useful and interesting than most organizations realize. Consider these seven steps to getting the most of them while being efficient about it.
1. Get in the right mindset
Go into an inventory effort with the right mindset:
- An inventory isn't just a spreadsheet
- Developing an inventory isn't a goal in its own right. You only develop an inventory as a means to an end.
- Approach your inventory as an exploration.
- Don't rely on a single tool to magically dump out a useful inventory.
But mostly don't approach an inventory as a "mind-numbingly detailed odyssey".
2. Define initial questions that you want the inventory to help answer
Even though an inventory is an exploration, we don't want to start out completely blind. We should start with a set of initial questions. Note: don't overlook future state questions.
3. Figure out what data you can collect easily, that moves you toward answering the initial questions
You don't want to collect data just because it's easy to do so, but in your first pass on the inventory you should start with data that's easy. This includes:
- Using data you already have
- Automatic (from tool) information
- Gathering a few metrics
- Metrics that are easy to understand
- Looking at one data source or multiple individually
- Estimated values
4. Make the inventory dynamic
Dead, static inventories are limited in effectiveness. Ditch static spreadsheets for better content inventories. Instead, generic reports that:
- Summarize
- Can be updated
- Can be used to flip between summary and the details via drill downs
5. Find patterns (don't get stuck in the minutiae)
Our goal isn't to impress our colleagues with the size of our spreadsheets. We almost always are really looking for patterns to help us make business decisions. This is especially true when you are dealing with a large digital presence. One of the most effective ways of exposing patterns is by graphing the information, so we can see proportionally how much content we have with similar characteristics. For larger sites, you may want to look for other patterns such as topic inventories, site inventories, and also searching through layers of content over time.
6. Based on the initial findings, ask the next round of questions
We may only uncover certain questions about our digital presence after looking at data at hand and moving toward answering our initial questions. Or we may refine our questions.
For example, for one client I first developed a simple graph (the hard part was gleaning the underlying data) of reports with images that were tall vs. those those that were not. After discovering that the problem was pervasive, I then helped to disocver more precisely where the problem was (see the description of this example).
7. Decide which of the next questions is worth answering
As you dig into you inventory, you may realize that you have some questions that are not very easy to answer (for example, always consider multiple sources of data). In that case, you have to weigh whether it is worth answering the question.
Repeat
Ideally, especially if you have made your inventory dynamic, you can continue to iterate on it.
