Cereal in the saucepan

As I mentioned in the last post, Irrelevant Taxonomies, I want to spend a few cycles digging in to my approach to taxonomy, both to contrast it with how I see taxonomy typically done as well as to solicit feedback, comments, and general heckling from you all out there–nothing like industry scorn to sharpen your ideas, right?

I thought I’d begin by explaining more about each of the dichotomies I introduced in the last post.

Today, let’s look at the first one: focus on the documents being stored versus focus on the process that work with the documents being stored.

Contrary to popular belief, a taxonomy project for document management shouldn’t primarily be concerned with documents, but with how folks use those documents. And I would even go a step further and say that no taxonomy project–if it wants to be successful–should be concerned with the things being organized but rather with how folks will use them. I can think of one exception, but let’s get to that later. Let’s start with the rule that proves the exception.

Boxes and arrows, Crate and Barrel

One of the most ubiquitous, every-day taxonomies in the Western world is the kitchen. Silverware, dishes, glasses, pots and pans, appliances, dry goods, perishable foods, table linens, chachkes–you’ve got a great mix of objects and a range of activities they support in the lifecycle of the household and its occupants.

To build an effective taxonomy for your kitchen and store all these objects, you need to weigh two considerations: how you’re going to use each object and the space available to you. And you need to weigh them in that order, otherwise your kitchen will be less-than-usable. Here’s why.

If we wanted to organize our kitchen to maximize space, we would never do things like store empty pots and pans or glasses in one place and disposable boxes of dry goods in another…we’d dump the dry goods into those empty pots, pans, and glasses and toss the disposable boxes they came in–et voila: maximized space!

Cooking, however, would pose a bit of a challenge if we used this principle to organize our kitchens. Which is why we don’t.

Instead, all of us organize our kitchens to make it easier to do what we do in kitchens: cook, clean, and eat. We leave pots and glasses empty because we need to fill them with food and liquids while cooking and eating; we put some utensils right by the stove rather than in the drawer because we need them to cook; others can remain in the drawer because we need them to prep food on the counter; some glasses are stored above the dishwasher because we use them all the time (and are therefore washing them and putting them away all the time); others are used on special occasions (or are only hand washed) and can live elsewhere. And so on.

The same is true for the documents we want to organize as part of our taxonomy projects: the goal of organization is to make them easier to have on hand when and where folks need them.

To do this, you need to understand the business processes that use these documents, so that you can build a taxonomy that supports those processes. By doing so, you will naturally organize the documents in a way that makes them easier to have on hand when and where folks need them. What you do not do under any circumstances (except maybe if the main goal of the taxonomy project is to maximize space in a physical facility) is to start from a list of all documents in use and build a taxonomy that organizes all of them–a recipe (groan) for disaster.

The final word

With the issue of document-focus versus process-focus out of the way, in the next post we’ll move to the issue of taxonomy scope, i.e., striving to be comprehensive versus striving to be targeted. In the meantime, if folks have thoughts, bones to pick, or comments, jump in–let’s get the conversation started!