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We don’t do workflow

Written by James Robertson, published February 8, 2010

Categorised under: Intranets

Mark Tilbury explains why his intranet doesn’t use workflow. To quote:

Content comes in different shapes and context. Some needs ‘locking-down’, other content is ‘open’, while elements develop as it is pushed, modified and enhanced. There is not a ‘one solution’ fits all process flow within each stream, nor within each site area within a community site. Some communities have areas which are controlled by a central team, and no-one else can update/add. They also have areas which are open and require no authorisation or approval to publish and enhance. Other communities are more centrally controlled with some locked-down areas.

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One Comment:

  1. Mark Morrell commented on February 9th, 2010

    James,

    Workflow is only needed in exceptional circumstances – policy, sensitive content.

    BT’s philosophy from day 1 of its 15 year existence has been to have a one open intranet – not lots of siloed content.

    We have one set of standards that includes the need for clear ownership. We say if you own formal (factual and authoritative with one owner) the content then it is your responsibility to publish and manage it for its life span. I cover it in more details at http://markmorrell.wordpress.com/2009/02/18/building-an-intranet-publishing-community/.

    For other types of content http://markmorrell.wordpress.com/2009/07/20/all-intranet-content-is-not-the-same/ like blogs and wikis then only some of our standards are appropriate.

    But there is no workflow. For example blogs are on demand. The main thing is no anonymous postings.

    Mark