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Building a Taxonomy

1/31/2003 by ITtoolbox Popular Q&A Team for Toolbox for IT as adapted from KM-SELECT discussion group

Summary:
I am looking to build a taxomony and would like to know some of the benefits and design procedures. Should the old structures (folders in file system, CM system) be replaced?

Full Article:
Disclaimer: Contents are not reviewed for correctness and are not endorsed or recommended by ITtoolbox or any vendor. Popular Q&A contents include summarized information from KM-SELECT discussion unless otherwise noted.

1. Adapted from response by Mario on Monday, January 27, 2003

KM has a positive ROI if it is aligned with corporative strategies. In this case, strategies are centered, obviuosly. Taxonomies are used to align knowledge, organizational activities and strategies. All contents are classified using the taxnonomy and stored to be used after. I think that the organization should have a committee to evaluate the taxonomies and define what is relevant or not.

2. Adapted from response by sirsushant on Monday, January 27, 2003

Organisational taxonomies should be designed so that they are flexible enough to outride any organisational changes/restructures.

To achieve this, organisations should design essentially two taxonomies:

1)A departmental based taxonomy, which represents the organisation's hierarchy.

Reasons for implementing a department based taxonomy:

-Departmental based taxonomies are ideal as they mimic permissions and security access, they give clear sense of ownership and collaborative workspace for groups of users.

-Users usually tend to work at a departmental level for retrieving and storing content, and only on rare instances require a subject view to information.



2)A functional based taxonomy, which represents the key subject functions of an organisation.


Reasons for implementing a functional based taxonomy:

-Overtime, the departmental structure of the organisation changes (specially in large organisation, e.g. restructures), however, the subject domain areas of an
organisation are usually constant and rarely change.

-When departmental restructures happen, content is usually moved from one location within the taxonomy to another and/or the structure of the taxonomy is reorganised e.g. the information technology department moves under information management. The problem this poses then is that users that were once familiar with previous department based taxonomy have to adopt a new taxonomy in locating and storing information. However, by implementing a subject based taxonomy this problem to some extent can be alleviated, as users are still able to retrieve content by subject functions.

-Some groups of users (e.g. management) within an organisation require a subject functional view on contents.

3. Adapted from response by Bill on Tuesday, January 28, 2003

If your taxonomy covers the organisation rather than a single department or interest group, you should manage it centrally. Otherwise, in the medium term you will encounter difficulties. One of our customers with a couple of years' development on the taxonomy has approximately 20,000 headings. This requires central management by a qualified person.

You should take this opportunity to migrate the headings you currently use in file systems etc. to the taxonomy you build. Then, you can synchronise your file systems, site and intranet maps and so on with the taxonomy. The level of technical complexity in achieving this varies according to the systems involved, but should not be too demanding.

You should think of this one resource not as a single taxonomy that is rigid and inflexible, but as a collection of taxonomies. Different aspects can be managed by different users, and different views exposed to different parts of the organisation.

Disclaimer: Contents are not reviewed for correctness and are not endorsed or recommended by Toolbox.com or any vendor.

Popular Q&A contents include summarized information from Knowledge Management Vendor Selection discussion unless otherwise noted.

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