Summary
Enterprise IA problems are rarely caused by tricky information architecture. Instead, people and organizational problems manifest in bad IA. Sarah will share tools you can combine in different ways to help move your individual IA strategy forward.
Key Insights
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Information architecture involves navigation, content, and information models, but the IA work itself is usually a small fraction of the effort.
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Rebranding taxonomies and metadata as knowledge graphs helps secure funding and attention.
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The biggest obstacle to IA success is often organizational politics, not IA concepts or design.
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Getting from terrible IA to not terrible is often more challenging than advancing from good to great.
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The art of getting things done involves understanding who approves decisions and aligning work with existing organizational priorities.
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Windows of opportunity arise when problem, solution, and political streams align.
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You rarely need to pitch ideas directly to the CEO; success depends on engaging product managers and those who control the agenda or backlog.
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Being concretely prepared with a clear final approval step and necessary resources increases chances of success.
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Building credibility through helpfulness and understanding business systems earns allies like developers and PMs.
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Crises and organizational upheaval can create openings to push IA improvements that were previously impossible.
Notable Quotes
"The intellectually honest answer to most questions about information architecture is, I'm not sure, or it depends."
"Don’t call it an information model or taxonomies or metadata, call it a knowledge graph — even if it’s not one and may never be one."
"My job wasn’t going to be doing good IA, it was figuring out how to be allowed to do good IA."
"Getting from terrible to not terrible often requires entirely new approaches or ways of thinking about the organization."
"How can I make anyone else care? Unfortunately, I think mostly you can’t make anyone else care."
"Strategy is having a concrete goal and an understanding of the steps and resources required to get there."
"You need to get close enough to understand the detailed workings of your organization without losing your desire to change things."
"Windows of opportunity are moments of alignment between the problem stream, the solution stream, and the political stream."
"No amount of power is enough to make a wide-ranging agenda move forward on its own."
"If I do my job right, you never decide what goes in a dropdown again — and developers love that."
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