This document discusses how a web governance framework can help local governments better manage their online presence. It outlines 5 ways the framework can help: 1) it imposes order on online management; 2) it helps identify gaps in activities and resources; 3) it helps plan a better balance of activities versus resources; 4) it allows benchmarking against similar organizations; and 5) it can build a case for investment in web governance. The framework categorizes all aspects of online management into activities and resources and uses a scale of size, complexity and engagement to determine appropriate levels of each.

1. A free presentation from
Local Government
5 ways Web Governance can help

2. Web Governance is a system for managing an
online presence in a controlled & orderly way.

3. It delivers the certainty & stability your
Web Team needs to focus on online goals.

4. But, the problem for many local authorities
is that Web Governance is not working.
Why?

5. Lots of units do work completely unrelated to
each other, e.g. libraries vs. road repair
– yet they all need to be catered for online.
Exceptionally diverse
There are many stakeholder groups,
councillors, unions & others – & all want
a say in your web presence.
Special interests
There may be scores of employees from
many locations who contribute to online
– & more come on-stream all the time.
Staff as web publishers
Local government is It has many
And it relies heavily on

6. Many new sites & social networks
Huge content volumes
Massive user engagement
High user expectations
High internal expectations
Online Ambition
More importantly, recent years
have seen a MASSIVE growth in

7. Promotion
Social
Networks
Strategy
Planning
ContentDesign
Build
Hosting
Performance
Review
PublishingFeedback
Technical
monitoring
QA
Data &
security mgt
Change
control
Governance
policies
KPIs
Architecture
mgt
Testing
Approve
activity
Systems
Teams
Budget
Roles
Tools
Procedures
Documentation
Skills
Manpower
Technology
Performance
monitoring
Missing manpower or skills
Missing essential tools
Redundant roles or structures
Unclear decision making authority
Unclear leadership
Web Management
But this growth has often
not been matched by change in

8. If a Web Team has little control, individual
departments can do their own thing.
Lots of solo-runs
Solo-runs mean that everyone is a designer
& every department does things differently.
Design & technology
Some departments maintain great
content & others let things fall apart.
Online quality
This has led to symptoms like Great diversity of
Huge range of

9. Huge demands & no authority lead to
fractious relations & high staff turnover.
Dissatisfied staff
Governance issues lead to delays,
errors, uncertainty & poorer web quality.
Unhappy users
Errors & delays put the reputation of your Local
Authority at risk … & the public is watching.
Anxious managers
This has led to And
And

10. Something new is needed.

11. The ‘Web Governance Framework’ can
help re-assert your control over online.
Here are 5 ways it can help you…

12. The Web Governance Framework helps
you impose order on online management.
1

13. Promotion
Social
Networks
Strategy
Performance
monitoring
Planning
ContentDesign
Build
Hosting
Performance
Review
PublishingFeedback
Technical
monitoring
QA
Data &
security mgt
Change control
Governance
rules
KPIs
Architecture
mgt
Testing
Approve
activity
Systems
Teams
Budget
Roles
Tools
Procedures
Documentation
Skills
Manpower
Technology
For many teams, operations are a confusing
mess of seemingly disparate elements.

14. The Framework organises all these
elements into just 2 key categories…

15. Activities
Resources
Activities describe everything you must
do to manage an online presence effectively.
Resources describe everything you
must have to make the Activities happen.

16. These 2 categories list everything your Web Team
is responsible for regarding Web Governance.
This includes…

17. Promotion
Social
Networks
ContentDesign
Build
Hosting
Performance
Review
PublishingFeedback
Technical
monitoring
QA
Data &
security mgt
KPIs
Testing
Systems
Teams
Budget
Roles
Tools
Procedures
Documentation
Skills
Manpower
Technology
Planning Change control
Architecture
mgt
Set strategy & KPIs
Set policy & standards
Acquire resource & budget
Police online activity
The Activities of Leadership
Formoredetail,gotodiffily.com/downloads

18. Promotion
Social
Networks
Hosting
Performance
PublishingFeedback
Technical
monitoring
QA
Data &
security mgt
KPIs
Testing
Systems
Teams
Budget
Roles
Tools
Procedures
Documentation
Skills
Manpower
Technology
Architecture
mgt
Change control
Planning
Content
Design
Build
Testing
Hosting
Review
Publicity
The Activities of Development
Formoredetail,gotodiffily.com/downloads

19. Hosting
Technical
monitoring
Data &
security mgt
Testing
Systems
Teams
Budget
Roles
Tools
Procedures
Documentation
Skills
Manpower
Technology
Architecture
mgt
Publishing
Quality assurance
Engagement monitoring
Performance monitoring
Infrastructure monitoring
Change control
The Activities of Maintenance
Formoredetail,gotodiffily.com/downloads

20. Promotion
Testing
Systems
Teams
Budget
Roles
Tools
Procedures
Documentation
Skills
Manpower
Technology
Architecture selection
Architecture management
Performance management
Data & security management
The Activities of Infrastructure
Formoredetail,gotodiffily.com/downloads

21. Promotion
Testing
Systems
Budget
Roles
Tools
Procedures
Documentation
Technology
Manpower
Skills
Roles & responsibilities
Teams & authority
The Resources of People
Formoredetail,gotodiffily.com/downloads

22. Systems
Budget
Tools
Technology
Testing
Roles
Standards
Procedures
Policies
Documentation
The Resources of Processes
Formoredetail,gotodiffily.com/downloads

23. Budget
Testing
Roles
Technology
Systems
Software
The Resources of Tools
Formoredetail,gotodiffily.com/downloads

24. Salaries
Software
Other, e.g. contractors
The Resources of Budget
Formoredetail,gotodiffily.com/downloads

25. Using these categories means you can visualise
online operations in a new, simpler way.
For more detail, go to diffily.com/articles/model.htm

26. The Web Governance Framework helps
you identify gaps in Activities & Resources.
2

27. Every component of Activity & Resource needs
to happen on all sites. They are non-negotiable.

28. Where gaps do occur, they increase the risk
that something will go wrong with your site.

29. Technology
SystemsIf essential software is missing,
manual effort is needed - which
can result in unexpected issues.
Delays & Errors
Missing tools result in
Software
Example #1…

30. Publishing
Quality assurance
Engagement monitoring
Performance monitoring
Infrastructure monitoring
If Change Control is ignored - it
could lead to a marketing campaign
clashing with server downtime.
Potential Disaster
A missing task spells
Change control
Example #2…

31. The Framework allows you to audit
operations & quickly fill in any gaps.

32. The Web Governance Framework helps you
plan a better balance of Activity vs. Resource.
3

33. Governance stability depends on having
enough Resource to cope with Activity.

34. Getting this balance right depends on knowing
the Scale of your management burden.

35. Scale is the third & central component
of the Web Governance Framework.

36. Scale measures the Size, Complexity &
levels of Engagement of your online presence.
Scale Size measures the management impact of core operations, especially content.
Complexity measures the management impact of technology, especially hosting.
Engagement measures the management impact of traffic, comments & feedback.
Activities describe everything you must
do to manage an online presence effectively.
Resources describe everything you
must have to make the Activities happen.
Activities
Resources
For more about Scale, go to diffily.com/governance

37. By combining Scale with Activity & Resource
you can plan a better operational balance.
Here’s how…

38. 1. First, measure your online Scale
Determine how Big, Busy & Complex your web
presence is & thus calculate your management burden.

39. 2. Estimate the resulting Activity
Based on management burden, you can predict how
detailed each Activity will be & how often it will occur.
1. First, measure your online Scale
Determine how Big, Busy & Complex your web
presence is & thus calculate your management burden.

40. 2. Estimate the resulting Activity
Based on management burden, you can predict how
detailed each Activity will be & how often it will occur.
1. First, measure your online Scale
Determine how Big, Busy & Complex your web
presence is & thus calculate your management burden.
3. Calculate your required Resource
Finally, based on the estimate of Activity, you can
predict the level of Resourcing you’ll need in support.

41. Using the 3 elements of the Framework we
can predict the investment needed to
oversee the many subsites & social
networking presences it has online.
Birmingham City
For example, let’s take
Why Birmingham? It is the first, large UK city alphabetically.

42. 1. Birmingham is large in Scale
Birmingham City Council generates lots of content,
has high user engagement & complex technology.

43. 1. Birmingham is large in Scale
Birmingham City Council generates lots of content,
has high user engagement & complex technology.
2. Operational Activity is high
Scale predicts a large burden – which means lots of
detailed Activity should be happening very frequently.

44. 1. Birmingham is large in Scale
Birmingham City Council generates lots of content,
has high user engagement & complex technology.
2. Operational Activity is high
Scale predicts a large burden – which means lots of
detailed Activity should be happening very frequently.
3. High Resource investment is needed
To support this level of Activity, Birmingham needs many
highly skilled staff in structured teams, with specialist tools,
following formal processes & a large web budget.

45. The next step is to organise these elements
into a cohesive Web Governance system.

46. The Framework can help you build
a better system of Web Governance.
4

47. Usefully, the Web Governance Framework allows you to
benchmark your online operations with others of similar Scale.
E.g. Vodafone.co.uk
- High engagement
- Lots of content
- Complex technology
E.g. Birmingham.ac.uk
- High engagement
- Lots of content
- Complex technology
Birmingham.gov.uk
- High engagement
- Lots of content
- Complex technology

48. Common skills include:
- Code
- Design
- Content
Typically, Large-Scale operations need a large Web Team
to expedite Activity & supervise how Resource is deployed.
Manpower/staffing can be
upwards of 10+ FTEs.*
Team structures & leadership
systems are often as shown.
Ownership often resides with IT,
Communications or Corp. Affairs.
Common tools include CMS,
QA, Analytics, Monitoring & more.
- Marketing
- Analytics
- Technical
*FTE = Full Time Equivalents. i.e. everyone contributing to
online adds up to about 10 fulltime staff, even though there
are (much) less than 10 people on the team.

49. Central
Digital
Unit
The clearest trend in Web Governance in Large-Scale
operations is towards Centralised Digital Units.
IT
HR
Comms
Roads
Library
Housing
Waste
Water
http://www.capgemini-consulting.com/digital-transformation-review-4
Older silo based operations centred on
organizational units are coming
under increasing pressure to change.
Didier Bonnet,Cap Gemini.
“Accelerating Digital Transformation”

50. UK central government has shown how successful
a Digital Unit with clear authority can be.

51. The challenge is to mirror this in Local Government too.

52. The Framework can help you build a
case for investment in Web Governance.
5

53. If your strategy demands a large web presence,
you need a large Governance system to support it.
Anything else is wishful thinking…

54. A bigger
online presence
Which means more
detailed & frequent Activity
Which requires more
investment in Resource.
Means a bigger
management burden

55. Staff with the right tools & guidance, will
produce consistently better content.
Improved quality
A web team with clear authority, can get
more done & has higher productivity.
Lower costs
Clear roles, coherent teams & defined processes
reduce the chances of embarrassing errors.
Reduced risk
It leads to And to
Better Web Governance brings many advantages…
And to

56. Stable operations ensures investment can be
directed at activities that actually produce value.
Happier management
And
Stable operations means more effort can
go into producing content users want.
Happier users
Stable operations creates clarity for
staff which leads to reduced conflict.
Happier staff
This means And
Ultimately, it creates the stability you need to focus on online goals.

57. Step 3. OptimiseStep 2. OrganiseStep 1. Discover
“We have lots of quality issues
& my Web Team is in revolt!
We need to start learning
more about Web Governance.”
“My Local Authority is finally
onboard with Web Governance.
I now need to get organised &
ensure we are well equipped.”
“Our Web Governance is good,
but I am sure we can do better.
We need more ways to
optimise for even better RoI.”
Of course, Rome was not built in a day.
Web Governance is a journey.

58. Here are a few ways I
can help on this journey.

59. Infographic: “Web
Governance is broken”
The Website
Manager’s Handbook
Web Content
Production Calculator
Something’s wrong with Web Governance. Find out
how we got into this mess - and how to get out of it.
The original guide! This book gives you a
practical model for the management of any site.
Calculate the time & effort you need to produce,
migrate and review new online content.
Free download at Diffily.com/governance
Free download at Diffily.com/book
Free download at Diffily.com/downloads

60. Make your operations more effective by learning
to do better Web Governance day-to-day.
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61. I am a consultant & commentator on Web Governance.
To arrange a free webinar, go to www.diffily.com
Hi. I’m Shane Diffily.
My book, ‘The Website Manager’s Handbook’ has been described by Gerry
McGovern as … “Very clear and well written. I'm sure that someone
managing particularly a large website would find it genuinely useful.”
With 15 years' experience in digital operations, I have helped organisations
in both the public & private sectors improve online management.
Early in 2014, I produced a 6-part online training course in Web Governance
for leading technology vendor, Siteimprove.com.
To discuss any online management issues … Email me: shane@diffily.com
Tweet to: @diffily

62. A free presentation from www.diffily.com