• Download: 29 Top-level Project Directories (revised May 11, 2009)
• Download: Simplified Structural Taxonomy (revised May 11, 2009)

To recap, our original thinking was to keep the structural taxonomy sufficiently broad (horizontal), to be reasonably inclusive of the content categorizations in common use by a legal services program, and purposefully shallow in depth (vertical), to offer modest granulation so as to keep the structural organization and navigation simple and practical.

We struck a balance between using all ten of the very familiar LSC legal problem categories as top-level directory names, and adding additional categories to address obvious gaps. The ten LSC legal categorizations are definitely part of the shared, commonly understood “vocabulary” of the organization. But we added another 19 top-level directories that are consistent with the broader range of topics and tasks at play in our work environment. For example, we have “Housing,” yes, but LSNC does a huge amount of work in “Land Use” and related issues (e.g., housing element, inclusionary zoning, etc.), so we added that category and related sub-categories to the structure. (The existing LSC “Other Housing” subcategory just doesn’t cut it. Land use is not a catch-all category for us, if you get the drift.)

There are several categories in this revised structural taxonomy that reflect this shift in our thinking. A good example is under the LSC “Income Maintenance” category, where we retained the basic LSC sub-categories but added new ones for “Child Care,” “General Assistance” and “Refugee Cash Assistance.” We also tweaked the wording of many of the sub-categories to correspond more accurately to how users here refer to things, for example, by changing “Unemployment Compensation” to “Unemployment Insurance.” Another example is where we retained the LSC category for “Individual Rights,” but concluded that the LSC sub-categories are somewhat muddled, so we created a different if still simple subset. We also dropped some of the LSC sub-categories that have little or no anticipated use. (Really, you do a lot of “name changes” in your program?) We then simplified the directory and subdirectory names by eliminating the redundant references to “LSC Code,” eliminated the LSC problem code numbers, and dropped the cumbersome “Not_*” labeling also used with some LSC problem code names.

Basic housecleaning stuff.

The RTR will be our way to recognize and promote among all our staff the changes in how documents and other files are made easily and intuitively findable, and given a new level of access and usability throughout our non-profit organization. After all, that is the core purpose of enterprise search. And a key element of all this is changing deeply rooted individual notions or assumptions about what can or should be “shareable.”

In working on this project within a non-profit environment, we have learned that most employees have an inclination to undershare, not overshare. Not because they are selfish or secretive; rather, because the type of transparent sharing that enterprise search makes possible is foreign to most of them. It is familiar to them to be asked to provide a document to others on request in person, by phone or by email. It is foreign to them to decide in advance that a document they created or have received from someone else should be transparent to the rest of the entire organization. The concepts of creation and possession are severed from the concept of findability.

To be sure, the increasing use of collaborative web-based document tools within our organization — principally our adoption two years ago of Google Apps — has helped us on this journey. Most staff at this point are familiar with the concept, if not the practice in their individual work, of creating or editing or uploading documents that can be “shared” from a common web location. They get that, even if they don’t do it themselves, because increasingly others demand they do so… when they get a “share” message email from Google Docs about a document someone created or edited there; when they get an email with a link to something someone else posted in our domain’s Google Sites; or when they get a message to fill out a Google Docs form for, well, whatever.

As we prepare for the RTR, the team working on this project have brainstormed about what we can say or demonstrate to the staff in each office, to prompt them to rethink (OK, in some cases just think) what types of documents should be shared with others by adding them to the new document repositories.

We now refer to this as “presumptive shareability.” In particular situations, it may not be appropriate to make the document or file transparent through enterprise search, but in most cases it will be because all are situations where the document or file has served a shareable purpose, i.e, use by more than one person or re-use by one or more persons.

Among the situations we think should trigger staff to think to add the document or file in question to the shared repository are the following:

• An attachment to an email message you send or forward to someone else.
• You request or receive a file as an email attachment from someone within the organization.
• You receive a non-confidential file attachment from someone outside the organization.
• Every time you re-use a document or form as part of your work.
• You learn that the PowerPoint (or other presentation format) for a training or conference event you attended is now available for viewing or downloading.
• You lug home substantive hard-copy handouts distributed from a training or conference.
• Can you say, “presentation” and/or “portable”? Whatever it is, if it is a PDF or PPT file it is presumptively shareable.
• If it is the “final” version of a case-related pleading, memorandum, exhibit or correspondence and you think others may find it usable, share it.
• Usable documents you discover and think to save to your desktop as part of research on the Web, regardless of file type (PDF, DOC, XLS, etc.)
• Similarly, when doing work-related research on the Web, anytime you think to bookmark a web page or save the page to your desktop as an HTML or TXT file.
• … you get the drift.

Shareability promotes findability. That’s our story and we’re stickin’ to it.

I’ll just give you the end-product upfront and then explain how LSNC sorted out the basic taxonomic structures for its shared document repository. The two PDF files linked below are copies of what was distributed at a program-wide meeting a few weeks ago to address and resolve what the basic organization structures would look like.

• Download: 29 Top-level Project Directories
• Download: Simplified Project Taxonomy

It was actually quite easy to come up with an initial (if bloated) proposed list of likely substantive advocacy content targets, their location, and how the content would be organized, but even that required process.

LSNC has what it calls a “regional counsel” model, which means there are three designated advocacy leaders with senior substantive, litigation and advocacy experience who are expected to provide just that, “leadership.” (One of the three, by the way, is Mona Tawatao who is the recipient of the 2007 NLADA Reginald Heber Smith award.) The regional counsel, with feedback from other management leadership (including the executive director, a few local office managing attorneys interested in this particular project detail, and the senior office manager representing support staff interests) worked up the list, later vetted more broadly with the entire management team, who in turn vetted it with each of their local offices or other program unit.

In the initial proposal, the substantive advocacy content was organized based on the ten LSC Problem categories in current use by legal services programs, plus roughly an additional 30 or so other general categories. The latter included additional substantive categories (economic development, disaster relief, etc.), practice matters (e.g., federal and state court practice issues, discovery, etc.), and other work-related content (self-help clinic content, specialized training materials, etc.) that reflect what LSNC and other legal services field programs actually do for a living. In response to any number of discussions and comments by the smaller group thrashing the details out, the list at times expanded and contracted, went deeper and then sometimes more shallow. This initial organization structure also included targeted content related to local office and central administrative office work. A similar vetting process was undertaken by the senior office manager with all the other office managers in all the core local offices, as well as administrative and business office managers. As mentioned earlier, each of those, in turn, were asked to vet the structures with their respective staff.

This process did not operate in a project vacuum. As not only one of the three regional counsel but also the person responsible for managing this project, I also did what I think managers should always do: I talk to the people affected. I took the time, a lot of it, to speak directly and individually with all of the forgoing to explain the overall project and its technical demands, and in a non-technical fashion (well, at least I tried) the significance of developing an organizational structure, and other, related issues, such as the use metadata models to attribute value to the targeted content, and so on. The point being, to take the time to assure leadership understood from more than a memo what the project is about, why it matters, and answer their questions or concerns. In response to the vetting and these dialogs, real changes were made in the proposed organization and additional content targets were identified. Time investments paid dividends, at least in this case.

By the time our GSA consultant showed up for a scheduled three-day thrashing of our test-bed installation in Sacramento, we had a taxonomy with over 40 top-level directories and a lot of two- and three-level deep subdirectories. He looked at this, in a non-committal fashion said “that’s fine,” and then began to suggest reasons why it should be simplified. This push by the GSA consultant was prompted by notions of usability and manageability of the content areas. As mentioned in the prior post on project taxonomy, there are not significant advantages or improvements to search results in a repository structure beyond a second-level directory. The consultant also emphasized that most users are not likely to locate or use a directory substructure below the second level. (This has to do with users navigating directory structures to add, remove or modify files, for whatever reason.)

Since a significant portion of the metadata models we are adopting rely on the organization structures in order to build logical, searchable “collections,” we simplified the structures in response to the consultant’s recommendation in this regard. Hence, the 29 top-level directories and the “simplified” taxonomy you can see in the memos linked at the beginning of this post, and the reliance on only one-level deeper for those directories.

As we get life experience with this organization structure, my guess is that we may expand to add a few additional top-level directories but not many, if any. I think we have things pretty much covered at the top-level, at this point. But apart from the rigid yet practical exploitation of the dated — but undeniably familiar — LSC Problem Codes for a large chunk of the substantive organization, my guess also is that the one-level down subdirectory structures will likely change as users give us feedback, and we discover that some subdirectories are not particularly used or useful. Proof’s in the pudding, people.

This all came full circle with our program-wide meeting a few weeks back. By the time of that meeting, every manager within LSNC had seen the organization proposals, every manager had a one-on-one conversation with project staff about the project and the organization structure, every manager had vetted the proposal to his or her people, and the memos you see linked here had been distributed to all offices.

That’s how we roll.