Before I was an agile coach, I was a librarian. I like helping people, finding information, organizing structure, reading, continuous learning, and removing impediments to people’s progress.
These skills continue to serve me to this day and are what kickstarted my career in tech. I was recruited at Amazon in their self-publishing division before I started working in taxonomy, which eventually led to SEO, and then to my agile coach career.
What is the connection between agile and taxonomy?
Transparency of information. There is value in comprehensive documentation; the Agile Manifesto says so.
In a nutshell, taxonomy is the organization of information in a structure designed to help people find things faster. Because I have a background in it, I’m often asked to help teams organize the information that they share (here’s looking at you, Confluence).
Here are some best practices:
Match your information architecture to user behavior.
If you can get any kind of data on how people are using your information, this will help you immensely in your structure. Where are people clicking, what is their navigation path, where do they abandon their journey, what are they searching for?
Use this data to name your categories or folders, create new ones, delete old ones, move them around so they’re more visible. User data is your window into how the people who will use your information are behaving.
Keep your info updated.
There’s nothing worse than arriving at a piece of information that seems promising only to realize it’s completely out of date. Every couple of months, throw a virtual clean-up party to revisit the information you’re storing. Does it need updates? Does it need deletion? Anything missing? Be ruthless in your clean out (and use a tool that allows you to restore pages if needed).
Put it in a tool that’s actually being used.
If MS Teams is gathering dust but your internal Trello board has a regular frenzy of activity. Put your information into a tool that is getting use. You might have the most beautiful documentation in the world, but if it’s in a corner of the company intranet that nobody’s using, it doesn’t matter. Which brings me to…
Just get it out there.
Maybe it isn’t pretty, but it’s there. It might not fit perfectly in your tool. It might not be in any categories or folders or have color-coded labels. But the information is there. People can get to it in some way without having to ask for it or search through their e-mail.
This transparency of information is the most important part above anything. Above naming, categorization, structure, whatever.
You don’t want one person holding on to everything. You don’t want your information hidden away in the dark corner of a tool.
You want your teams and your stakeholders to be aware of your progress, requirements, roadmaps, and decisions.
That is the best practice of all.
Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash