Why Is It So Difficult to Execute Web Tactics?

I recently gave a talk to a group about how to plan for and execute a
ROT clean up. (ROT, meaning the treatment of Redundant, Outdated, or
Trivial content). Throughout the presentation, we kept
coming back to questions along the lines of, "how do I get senior
management to buy in?" or "how do I get content owners to agree to
this?"

Whether you are initiating a ROT clean up, a site re-design or rolling out a new technology, these questions are symptoms of a larger problem - you
don't have a Web Operations Management Strategy or good Web Governance
in place.

The success of any Web tactic depends on how mature you are
in the areas of strategy and governance. For example, if you don't have
defined policies and standards, you are going to struggle any time you
try to execute something on the Web. The reason being, without strategy
and governance, you have no authority to make others comply. So, even
if you define ROT cleanup as a "best practice," you are still going to
find resistance within your organization because there is nothing that
says they have to comply with that initiative.

The next time you plan to launch a major Web project, it may save you, and the organization, to a lot of grief to first revisit your Web Operations Strategy and Web Governance. Having them in place will ensure that you have the formalization of authority and policies and standards to ensure the success of Execution efforts.