Level of Information Process Maturity
The first thing I realized when I read about the different levels of content strategy maturity is that my own team’s maturity doesn’t quite fit within any of the categories described. In terms of structure, we are at level 4, Managed and Repeatable, but when under pressure, we fall into level 2, Rudimentary.
Everyone on the team is committed to a cohesive content strategy model in which each person plays a certain role. Even when people are absent from meetings, we are still equally productive and focused. During most meetings, we assess the current task and decide how each person will contribute to it. We’re constantly in contact through the same media (mediums).
Level 2 comes in because we often added onto the roles that we had originally assigned for ourselves. When under pressure, we tried to take on every role at once. (I don’t even remember what my original roles were.) A few days into the process, we realized that we should determine roles on a more reactionary basis rather than rely on the official role descriptions. When a new issue came up, we determined who would do what.
Another challenge that we constantly faced is ideas for expanding the project. Truth be told, there are many improvements for our client’s database that need to happen. Our main restraint is time. Time forces us to prioritize which improvements to make and which to recommend for the client. It’s important to remember that we are performing a content audit, not making a proof-of-concept or a prototype. We are surveying a database, not fixing it.
It’s a bit ironic that time pressure causes us to forget our predetermined roles, but it also generates more time-consuming ideas.
Hypothetical Amendments
The group work for this project is almost finished, but if I could make changes to the process, I would emphasize content job descriptions, establish a content planning calendar, and ask for contextual information from stakeholders sooner.
Job Descriptions
I would brainstorm examples of how the roles would potentially be executed within the project. Early troubleshooting would have saved us from a lot of reactionary decision making.
Content Planning Calendar
The professor prescribed three hours per week per individual on this assignment. We promptly forgot about this; most of us spent at least two hours per day. Keeping the calendar at the forefront of our efforts would have forced us to prioritize and perhaps create a more cohesive product.
Contextual Information
My team would have benefited from reading the company’s subscriber list and stylesheet during the first week of the project. We did not know to ask about these items until later.
While our constantly expansive thinking will serve us well in our individual summary reports, it was not the most productive mindset for completing the deliverables. We lost sight of the parameters of the project, which should have been the way we structured our work.
Takeaways
I documented my first experience in professional teamwork on this page. The takeaways from that experience and this one differ slightly because of the differences in project type. I still very much prefer secretarial roles that keep the team organized. I can and have lead meetings before, but I believe I’m stronger in organizational roles. In this project, we were familiar with the technological tools being used. The tools we weren’t familiar with were structural ones, ways to plan and chart progress. We used a WBS board and Microsoft Teams for a rudimentary structure, but that didn’t get us very far. For this project, my takeaway would be that it’s necessary to define the scope and methods of a project before trying to produce deliverables. Communication and output are not enough to complete a project successfully.
Jennifer Goon 