Worst Practices

I find it odd when organizations focus on other people’s Best Practices, especially when they pertain to content. Best Practices are unique to an organization and a set of conditions, which are rarely if ever the conditions that any other org faces. Instead of chasing Best Practices, it’s much smarter to avoid Worst Practices.

Worst Practices are universal. They sound great in theory but fail in practice, and they come into being when people who don’t understand content get to drive how it’s created.

Not having governance (or not enforcing it) is the mother of all Worst Practices. Governance should define who’s involved in content work and which aspects of it they can—and cannot—veto. It should also define who is NOT involved. Most of all, it must hold everyone accountable, including stakeholders. Ad hoc governance, the most common type, breeds Worst Practices, destroying content quality and user engagement faster than anything else.

If the Worst Practices listed below plague your org, then revisit your governance model and start holding people accountable.

Worst Practices for content include:

Cutting corners. Following established workflow is the best way to work quickly. Asking content teams to start without a brief, with a weak brief, or without the information and assets they need makes a project seem to start more quickly. That’s nice for stakeholders, but it makes everything slower and harder. When time is short, people need the tools that governance provides. Compress the entire process, but don’t cut corners.

Letting unqualified people work on content. Creating good content takes training, usually the kind that comes with a BA or Master’s degree. Managing content teams requires that same training plus years of experience working for and with editors, creative directors, and other coaches. Without this, it’s nearly impossible to assess and direct the production of content that has the polish brands deserve. SMEs should own factual accuracy. Content teams should own tone, voice, look, and feel. And, yes, that means not letting stakeholders and SMEs rewrite content to “save time.”

Trying to make people work without context. Stakeholders, SMEs, and other contributors acquire context over months if not years. Email strings and PowerPoint decks can be rich and nuanced to them but make almost no sense to anyone else. Instead of forwarding a long email string or PPT deck and telling the recipient “It’s in there,” these folks must call out the relevant parts.

Trying to make people work without information. Content teams can occasionally start some parts of a project without key information, but they won’t make regular, continuous progress when key information just dribbles in. When this happens, they have to immediately document the problem, remind everyone which information remains outstanding, and tell stakeholders exactly when and where progress will stop if the information doesn’t arrive.

Trying to make people work without time. Qualified people with the right tools and processes can create good content pretty quickly. SLAs, process, and workflow should list the time to complete specific tasks. If that time isn’t available, then creating content may not be the right answer.

Having weak Service Level Agreements. SLAs state how long the content team gets to work and how long stakeholders get to respond. If one side runs behind, then the schedule gets pushed a day for every day that they’re late. Barely missing a deadline isn’t a catastrophe, but a culture of lax SLAs destroys morale and sends good people packing. Classic example: repeatedly providing late feedback but refusing to adjust schedules and budgets.

Allowing multiple points of contact. When everyone talks to everyone else, no one really knows what’s happening. Information must pass through one channel (such as a workflow tool) that clearly identifies who said what and when they said it.

Giving feedback in real time. Stakeholders have a lot on their plates. They need time to ponder the work, and 24 hours is barely enough. Rushing them is just as counterproductive as rushing the content team.

Giving (or accepting) bad feedback. Good teams can create content quickly IF they have clear, consolidated, reconciled, actionable feedback that arrives on time. Late, murky feedback kills everyone's ability to focus. Error rates spike, even on small jobs, and work takes far longer than it should.

Not having a messaging hierarchy. When someone says, “It’s ALL important”, the resulting content will say nothing, bore users, and destroy engagement. What’s the ONE thing that this audience needs to know?

Skipping Legal and Brand compliance reviews. Omitting them doesn’t just kill work, it can kill careers.

Passing off personal prejudices as Best Practices. Creating good content is hard enough without people inventing problems.

So what are good practices?

Understanding that Worst Practices are universal. Stakeholders and content creators acknowledge them, and everyone works together to avoid them.

Understanding that Best Practices change. You follow principles recognized in your industry, but focus on what’s best for your brand at this moment.

Making Best Practices earn that title. You measure and optimize them against the test(s) of the marketplace.

Being able to repeat them. You don’t adopt them without deep examination—even if it worked really well that one time. Luck is no substitute for knowing why something works and being able to articulate it.

Charging for them. Best Practices are hard-won insight. The best of them become trade secrets.

Insisting that everyone in your organization can nail the basics of his or her craft on command. Some people focus on flash then embarrass themselves by overlooking something obvious. Experts quietly nail the basics every time. They can add flash as needed, but it usually isn’t.

Questioning them. You discard your Best Practices when—not if—they go out of date. 

When other people’s Best Practices aren’t right for your org, they can destroy your differentiation, strangle innovation, and push good people out the door. Avoiding Worst Practices is the Best Practice on which all others are founded. It’s also the best way to spot good practices and turn them into Best Practices that work for you.