How To Run A Content-Planning Workshop

How To Run A Content-Planning Workshop

• By James Deer


• October 24th, 2014


• ClientsContentContent Strategy


• 2 Comments

Back when my organisation started holding calm seriously, we invested a lot time in building a routine to furnish content. The biggest plea was always reckoning out how to get clients onboard with this new process.

Most of a clients were totally happy riffing on how to accommodate a business objectives of a devise or how to proceed a visible design, though they always struggled to get to grips with a routine for producing content. We found that a many effective proceed to get their buy-in was to run a content-planning workshop.

Workshops work unequivocally good to get everybody onboard with how to furnish calm (while also clarifying how to determine on content). By involving as many people from a client’s side as probable in these workshops, we can unequivocally underline people’s responsibilities, while also highlighting that this routine won’t occur overnight.

In this article, I’ll share a proceed we grown to run content-planning workshops with a clients. While we will need to adjust a format to your scenario, we should be means to request many of a steps.

1. Prepare

You’ll have to arrange out a few things before mouth-watering your customer to a workshop. These workshops have a few components, so put in a work previously to make certain all runs uniformly and we don’t have ungainly pauses during a session.

Put in some formulation work previously to make certain all runs uniformly and to equivocate ungainly pauses.

Find a Venue

You’ll wish to get a room with a vast list and a whiteboard. You could pierce a customer to your agency’s boardroom or do a seminar somewhere off-site that we determine on. Having an moving new sourroundings is always good for a client. Sometimes a customer will be engaged, though I’ve been in a few workshops where no one wanted to be there and were constantly checking their email or not holding it seriously. Working off-site competence reason everyone’s seductiveness better; it also creates it easier to set belligerent manners (no phones, for example).

Invite a Project Manager, Project Owner and Senior Editor

These roles will change hugely according to a project. Either way, engage some kind of comparison manager and someone on a belligerent who will indeed be producing a content. This way, you’ll get buy-in from a tip and a picturesque devise from a bottom.

Invite a technical person, too, so that they can speak about CMS formatting and any sum per emigration and edition processes. By mouth-watering people who paint pivotal areas of a project, we are minimizing risk. I’ve been in workshops where someone from authorised incited adult and effectively redefined a mandate by pity vicious authorised requirements.

Invite Representatives From Different Teams

Invite one or dual member from any of these groups: writers and producers, theme experts, and digital producers. Again, these roles will change according to your situation. Essentially, we wish to get managers from a cross-section of departments, as good as a people who will indeed be carrying out a prolongation routine that we map out. Be wakeful of organizational politics and a workloads of a people you’re involving.

Bring Materials

Bring copiousness of gummy records and markers and some large sheets of paper. These will be used via a workshop, and we will need adequate for adult to 3 groups.

2. Map Your Process

First, demeanour during a prolongation stages that a square of calm will need to go by before it is prepared to be published. This generally starts with identifying a pivotal calm forms (for example, “product pages,” “course outline pages,” “how-to guides”). Content forms are not indispensably “pages” as such, though could be some-more modular components of a website — things like product specifications or staff biographies.

Look during a prolongation stages that a square of calm will need to go by before it is prepared to be published.

Once you’ve identified a categorical calm types, demeanour during what’s concerned in holding them from a elementary page brief (which outlines what an object of calm is ostensible to achieve) to a product that is published and maintained.

Choose a Content Type

Choose a calm form that we design to seem on your new website, such as a use or product page, a blog post or a march outline. Choose something that everybody can describe to; equivocate specialized calm forms such as authorised papers and engineering reports.

Map a Publishing Process

In groups, map out a prolongation routine to get a singular square of calm published on a new website. Again, this will change a lot according to your organisation (for example, depending on who will be doing a complicated lifting of producing a content).

A elementary workflow competence demeanour something like this:

1. Draft content


2. Edit tinge of voice


3. Review internally


4. Get capitulation from client


5. Optimize for hunt engines


6. Import to CMS


7. Review web page


8. Publish


9. Maintain

The workflow will change extremely from devise to project. You competence need to comment for authorised and correspondence reviews or technical accuracy, or we competence need to mention phases for formatting and edition calm (such as formatting for mobile or converting equipment into downloadable PDF documents). This is another reason to start with a sincerely general square of content, and afterwards pierce on to formulating some-more elaborate workflows for specific calm forms or sections of a website.

The disposition that stems from people’s roles in a devise is always engaging to see (which is since carrying people with opposite roles concerned in a seminar is so profitable in a initial place). You competence find authorised member claiming to need 4 apart stages for legally reviewing any page, while a copywriter competence wish to mangle a modifying for tinge of voice into mixed phases. A accordant organisation bid should outcome in a workflow that is balanced, picturesque and concluded on.

3. Assign Responsibility

One of a many absolute things about these workshops is that we allot responsibility, creation transparent who accurately is accountable for that work. Failing to explain shortcoming over calm is one of a many common causes for delays. Bottlenecks occur customarily since people simply do not know they were approaching to furnish calm or since shortcoming has all been put on one person. This partial of a seminar should forestall such trouble.

Failing to explain shortcoming over calm is one of a many common causes for delays.

Assign Responsibility

Annotate any theatre on your piece with a chairman or purpose obliged for it. This competence demeanour something like this:

1. Draft content: theme expert


2. Edit tinge of voice: copywriter


3. Review internally: comparison editor


4. Get capitulation from client: devise owner


5. Optimize for hunt engines: SEO editor


6. Import to CMS: CMS editor


7. Review web page: devise owner


8. Publish: CMS editor


9. Maintain: theme expert

Identify Lack of Ownership

Mark any stages that don’t have a transparent owner. This is mostly a outrageous revelation. “We need to sinecure an SEO editor!” “We need a copywriter!” “We need a fritter chef!” By simply highlighting a tools of a routine for that no one is responsible, you’ll fast see where a hurdles for your devise lie. By acknowledging these now, we will save a outrageous volume of highlight down a line. You competence find that a devise is plain and has no gaps, or we competence immediately see that employing a copywriter will save we a whole lot of trouble. Either way, this partial of a seminar is critical.

Clarify Responsibilities

Ask, “Do a people obliged know they are responsible?” This is another good event to minimize risk. Make certain that everybody knows what’s approaching of them, and see either anyone has too most on their plate. A well-organized calm register or dedicated project-management program comes in accessible here.

4. Identify Risks In The Process

Building on a prior step, make certain a following questions are resolved to equivocate bottlenecks.

“Do Too Many People Have a Say?”

Multiple heads are infrequently not improved than one for producing content. Keep an eye out for pages or sections of a website that have a lot of editors and reviewers involved. I’ve seen so many projects behind since calm was bounced between editors for days on end, mostly only heading to over-edited and foolish text.

“Is One Person Overburdened?”

These workshops are a ideal time to cruise a volume of work reserved to people and cruise how practically they can get it done. Give reduction outspoken people a possibility to atmosphere their concerns, that is a lot easier when you’ve estimated a hours of work involved. Speak with any particular to examination their workload.

“Do We Have a Skills Required?”

Is feeble created calm a risk? Or could a calm be misinformed (due to a miss of expertise)? Will a calm be optimized for hunt engines? Go behind to your calm mandate and make certain we have a manpower to accommodate them all. If we don’t, call for some outward help.

“Where Might Things Get Political or Contentious?”

It’s an ungainly theme to broach, though organizational politics could poise a critical hazard to a project. I’ve mostly seen people reason behind their opinion (or, some-more dangerously, overreach their ability to broach work) due to certain people being in a room or politics. The best proceed to understanding with this is simply to provide all organisation members as equals and to ask probing questions of everybody in a room.

5. Estimate Hours

It competence not be easy, though try to calculate a male hours of work compulsory to finish any theatre of a process. This isn’t a same as calculating how prolonged it will take to finish a stage, nonetheless both are vicious when formulation resourcing.

Estimatehow most bid is compulsory to finish any stage.

Estimate Workload

Estimate (in fractions of hours) how most bid is practically compulsory to finish any stage. Once you’ve come to an agreement on a time required, write a series beside any stage. If a discuss about estimates is holding too long, we could try bettering a “planning poker¹” technique used in scrum.

Calculate Time

Add adult a time compulsory to finish all stages. This competence be a good time for a break.

Estimate Total Workload

Multiply a sum time by a series of pages expected for a website to get an guess of a sum volume of bid compulsory for all of your content. As mentioned, we competence be traffic with modules or equipment of calm (things like product specifications or staff biographies), rather than pages. Either way, cruise a normal distance of these equipment to get a picturesque guess of a time compulsory to get a work done. we mostly organisation together additional content, such as microcopy, treating it as a singular object in a calculation.

The calculation competence demeanour like this: 4 hours (time to furnish and approve one page) × 125 pages = 500 hours of work.

6. Present The Process

Everyone should examination a routine during a finish of a seminar to be transparent on what’s going to happen, who is doing what and how it will be implemented. This is also a good time to outline a subsequent steps.

Walk Through a Process

Each organisation should travel a whole organisation by their routine (on a piece of paper) and afterwards open adult a display for discussion. The chairman facilitating a seminar should go around and get submit from everybody in a room. Address any concerns or anxieties immediately. Concerns tend to concentration on either there is adequate time! Also, residence any technical issues that people competence not feel assured seeking about.

Try to film a presentations so that any absent stakeholders can keep adult with a discussion.

Following this discussion, pierce on to a somewhat some-more critical charge of environment picturesque deadlines for a calm and assigning responsibility. Talk about a program we competence use to horde your editorial calendar², once we have a transparent thought of a routine that a program has to support. Choosing a program initial could lead we to have to shoehorn a routine in; this is best avoided!

Workshops Work

That’s a routine we’ve grown to run workshops with a clients. Hopefully, this template will assistance we to run successful content-planning workshops of your possess and, some-more importantly, assistance we to get calm finished on time and to a high standard.

With everybody on a same page (literally), a risk of delays with calm prolongation will be distant less.

Additional Resources

• “Help Your Clients Produce Their Own Web Project Content³,” Liam King


• “The Art of Content Approval⁴,” Joel Barker


• “A Checklist for Content Work⁵,” Erin Kissane


• “Content Production Planning for Agencies⁶,” GatherContent


• “Let’s Talk About Migration⁷,” Hilary Marsh


• “Evolving Client Content⁸,” Steven Garrity

(al, ml)

Footnotes

1. 1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planning_poker


2. 2 http://blog.crazyegg.com/2013/10/18/content-strategy-editorial-calendar/


3. 3 http://www.lagomstrategy.net/blog/2014/16/06/8-tactics-help-clients-produce-web-project-content


4. 4 https://blog.gathercontent.com/art-of-content-approval


5. 5 http://alistapart.com/article/a-checklist-for-content-work


6. 6 https://gathercontent.com/content-production-planning-for-agencies


7. 7 http://www.hilarymarsh.com/2014/04/23/lets-talk-migration/


8. 8 http://alistapart.com/article/clientcontent

↑ Back to topShare on Twitter

How To Run A Content-Planning Workshop