Build Foundational Structures With Information Architecture
Structure the labels and taxonomies that will deliver long-lasting value to the organization.
- Information is inaccessible since working straight from solutions out of the box lacks structural stability.
- Finding the relevant information is time consuming because it can be a struggle to navigate to the right place and make sense of varying degrees of ambiguity.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
Don’t rush into implementing recently acquired technology too soon. Ensure there are effective foundational structures that exist and align with organizational strategies.
Impact and Result
Our approach in information architecture should help establish the structural foundation that can be utilized in organization-wide solutions:
- Assess the needs of key stakeholders and ensure that business context is top of mind.
- Build taxonomies and/or ontologies as foundational structures for the organization.
- Apply standard naming conventions when labeling terms.
- Determine the needs of the important stakeholders and keep the business environment top of mind.
- Create taxonomies and/or ontologies as the organization's underlying frameworks.
- Label terms using accepted naming conventions.
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The Enterprise Content Management workshop is a good opportunity to learn different aspects of managing content. In the process of studying our RF... Read More
Build Foundational Structures With Information Architecture
Structure the labels and taxonomies that will deliver long-lasting value to the organization.
EXECUTIVE BRIEF
Analyst Perspective
Information architecture results in assurance that the right information is in the right place to help you deliver your very best.
Information architecture can be the organization's compass in achieving long-lasting value. It can support the requirements for just about any solution.
Information architecture is a sub-component of enterprise architecture. It inherits the ability to realize the business goals and objectives in practical deliverables.
Putting appropriate effort into organizing and structuring the ecosystem that your business-critical data and information will reside in results in expected behavior.
Ibrahim Abdel-Kader
Research Analyst,
Data & Analytics Practice
Info-Tech Research Group
Executive Summary – Information architecture
Your Challenge
The structural state of organization-wide solutions lack consistency, standardization, and fortitude. This leads to the following challenges:
- The lack of structural reliability when operating immediately from solutions out of the box is making information inaccessible.
- Even when leveraged properly, finding the relevant information is inefficient.
- Navigation and search across repositories is a struggle.
Knowledge is either duplicated or lost as a result.
Common Obstacles
Major change is needed; however, the following will make the journey harder:
- Resources such as time and expertise are scarce.
- Technology is painful and confusing rather than enabling the business.
- Populating metadata is evidently challenging cultural behaviors.
The later this initiative is properly addressed, the worse the problems get and the harder the path to success becomes.
Info-Tech's Approach
Our approach to information architecture should contribute to laying the groundwork for organization-wide solutions:
- Assess the needs of key stakeholders and ensure that business context is top of mind.
- Build taxonomies and/or interdependent taxonomies as foundational structures for the organization.
- Apply standard naming conventions when labeling metadata.
Info-Tech Insight
Don't jump the gun and start using newly obtained technologies right away. Make sure there are tailored underlying frameworks in place that support organizational objectives and usage.
Glossary
- Element: Basic unit in the ArchiMate metamodel. Used to define and describe the constituent parts of enterprise architectures and their unique set of characteristics.
- Metadata: Data about data.
- Business capability: What a business does to enable value creation. Business capabilities are business terms defined using descriptive nouns such as "Marketing" or "Research and Development." They represent stable business functions, are mutually exclusive and comprehensively exhaustive, and typically will have a defined business outcome.
- Business process: A business process is the execution of a sequence of activities that are coordinated to produce a specific output for an internal or external outcome.
- Information architecture: Information architecture describes the discipline of the definition, categorization, and organization of metadata and semantics.
- Naming convention: A generally agreed scheme for naming things.
- Controlled vocabulary: An organized arrangement of words and phrases used to index content and/or to retrieve content through browsing or searching.
- Business data glossary: Glossary of the most-used and most-popular data terms within the organization, with their definitions and semantics. Used primarily to avoid ambiguity.
- Taxonomy: A structural and hierarchical representation of the same type of element.
- Interdependent taxonomy: A structural and dynamic representation of the relationship between elements in any given set of taxonomies.
Develop an Enterprise Content Management Strategy and Roadmap
Great information services means a big-picture strategic lens on the whole dynamic lifecycle of information
Information Architecture is part of the Enterprise Architecture framework
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Naming conventions Controlled vocabulary |
Data catalog Taxonomies |
UX Design Interdependent taxonomies |
Data Architecture |
Application Architecture |
Infrastructure Architecture |
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Security Architecture |
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Enterprise to program/portfolio/domain
Info-Tech Insight
Decisions at the enterprise level apply across multiple programs/portfolios/solutions and represent the guardrails set for all to play within.
Data domain documentation
Select the correct granularity for your business need.
Sources:
Dataversity; Atlan; Analytics8
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Taxonomy examples
Taxonomy: A structural and hierarchical representation of the same type of element. (One-to-many)
Famous examples and common ways organizations will build a taxonomy.
Famous taxonomy examples:
- Animal kingdom
- Dewy Decimal System
- Audio playlists in Spotify or iTunes
Common areas that can be enhanced with the use of a taxonomy in organizations:
- Site map
- Folder structure
- Metadata fields
- Organization chart
Find out more in our DIY section
Image source: MarTech
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