Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, Second Edition

Strategies Under Attack

While we’re on the topic of buy-in, it’s worth discussing some critical issues that crop up again and again when developing information architecture strategies. It’s not unusual for a hostile stakeholder within a client’s organization to ask the following questions during an interview:

• How can you develop an information architecture when we don’t have a business strategy?

• How can you develop an information architecture before we have the content in place?

These questions can stop the inexperienced information architect in his tracks, especially when they’re asked by a Chief Information Officer or a Vice President for Business Strategy within a Fortune 500 corporation. It’s at times like that when you wish you’d read one of those books on how to deal with difficult people or how to disappear into thin air.

Fortunately, the lack of a written business plan or a complete content repository does not mean you need to fold up your blueprints and go home. In all our years of consulting for Fortune 500 clients, we’ve never seen a business plan that was complete or up to date, and we’ve never seen a content collection that wouldn’t undergo significant change within a twelve-month period.

The reality is that you’re dealing with a classic chicken-and-egg problem. There are no clean answers to the questions:

• What comes first, the business strategy or the information architecture?

• What comes first, the content or the information architecture?

Business strategies, content collections, ...