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A digital governance framework is a system that delegates authority for digital decision-making about particular digital products and services from the organizational core to other aspects of the organization, as shown in Figure 1.5. Digital governance frameworks have less to do with who in your organization performs the hands-on work of digital and more to do with who has the authority to decide the nature of your websites, mobile apps, and social channels. That means a digital governance framework does not specify a production process. It does not articulate a content strategy, information architecture, or whether or not you work in an agile or waterfall development environment. What a digital governance framework does is specify who has the authority to make those decisions. This explicit separation of production processes from decision-making authority for standards is what gives the framework its power.

If you consider your own situation, it’s likely that most organizational debates about digital are not about who does the work, but rather about the way your websites look or what digital functionality should or should not be built and how those efforts are funded. In my experience, most digital stakeholders are so disinterested in doing the day-to-day grunt work of digital that a relatively small, central digital team is completely overburdened by tactical development tasks, while an army of digital stakeholders (who want to put little or no resources, fiscal or human, and effort into ensuring the work gets done) use their organizational authority to dictate how websites should look, which applications should be developed, and which social channels ought to be supported. This unbalanced situation leads to a contentious, resentful work environment, and more importantly, to a low-quality, ineffective digital product. The overburdened digital team stays in this situation because doing all the work is often the only way they can ensure that best practices and their standards are adhered to—because there is no governance framework, and the only way they can ensure standards compliance is by doing all the work themselves.

Having a digital governance framework brings digital development back into balance by separating day-to-day digital production functions and decision making for strategy, policy, and standards. For a long time, daily Web page maintenance and responsibility for the look-and-feel and functionality of websites has been concentrated in the hands of a few people in the organization. Perhaps this strategy was effective in the early days of digital production. But, today, with a more complex digital presence that includes not just websites but also mobile and social software interactions, digital production needs to be distributed throughout the organization. In order for production decentralization to be done effectively, a strategy and policies and standards need to be clearly communicated so that all people working with digital know what to do and what not to do. A digital governance framework provides that clarity.

FIGURE 1.5 The digital governance framework accountability grid.

When this effective decentralization of production happens, two important things occur:

• The workload and expense of digital developing is shared throughout the organization.

• The organization can leverage the knowledge assets of their entire organization to inform and support its digital portfolio.

And that’s really powerful.

DO’S AND DON’TS

DO: Understand where you are on the digital maturity curve before you start your framework design effort. Most organizations can’t make the leap from chaotic digital development environment to a responsive one in a single bound!

The Range of Digital Standards

When you establish decision-making authority for standards, you will discover that it takes collaboration among resources with a broad range of competencies in order to create an effective set of standards that work together (see Table 1.2).

TABLE 1.2 DIGITAL STANDARDS CATEGORIES

Standards Domain	Influence Over
Design The graphical presentation layer of digital.	Interactive (video design, podcasts, forms, applications) Typography and Color (symbols, bullets, lists, fonts typeface and size, color palette) Templates (page components, pop-up windows, tables, email) Images (background images, photos, buttons, and icons)
Editorial The style of language and the strategy for content delivery and curation.	Branding (tone, use of company name, use of product names) Language (style manual/dictionary, terminology, cultural competence) Localization (translation, management, cultural adaptation)
Publishing and Development Information management, development protocols, and publishing and infrastructure tools that impact the architectural aspects of information organization and delivery.	Information Organization and Access (information architecture, taxonomy, metadata, file-naming conventions, Web records management, accessibility) Tools (portal, Web content management, search, translation management, document management, collaboration, digital asset management, surveying, webcasts, social software, Web analytics, usability) Development Protocols (RSS links and specifications, multimedia, operating systems, browser compatibility, browser detection, load time, single sign-on, mobile, password management, FTP, frames, personal data collection, code, file types, cookies and sign-in, personal data retention, non-HTML content)
Network and Server The platform-focused aspects of digital production.	Domains (domain format/names, use of domain name, domain name redirects, vanity/marketing domains) Hosting (site backup, disaster recovery, supported connection speed, personal data retention) Security (personally identifiable information, ebusiness/financial transactions, security protocols to protect information, visitor data and traceability, firewall rules, data safety and transmission intrusion detection, alerting mechanism, monitoring mechanism SSL, passwords, time-outs and auto log-offs) Server Software (databases, DB naming conventions, app server, Web server, virtual private network [VPN], operating system, domain name server, load balancer, file server, maintaining licensing keys, single sign-on, server analytics, wireless application protocol [WAP], maintaining warranties and servicing) Server Hardware (standard Web server configuration, database, app server, Web server, firewall appliance, maintaining warranties and servicing, test servers, caching)