LavaCon 2014 - Big Content Risk Inventory


1	ID	What is a potential problem that could occur with a large content project?	Project Stage(s)	What are one or more potential ways to avoid or reduce this risk?
2	1	Sample Answer - Disregard this line	Sample Stage - Disregard this line	Sample Solution - Disregard this line
3		We might finish the project and not agree on how to measure its performance.	Planning, Measurement	Set clear project goals in the project scope, along with rough definitions of what would be a success, and what would be failure, and what key elements must remain in the project to still meet these goals.
4		Change in content post-translation	Creation	Enhanced content review and approval prior to translation process
5		didn't find all the content to migrate to a new system	Creation	audit many, many times, review usage logs, pray to the content gods
6		People might not buy into the ideas.	Promotion	assess user needs, opinions, behavior before starting
7		The content project could go from 200 hours to 400 hours to complete.	Planning	Plan for extra hours.
8		Failed collaboration within multiple business lines or units.	Creation	Develop content with direct input from stakeholders within the businesses. MEET! MEET! MEET!
9		Project work completely over budget because estimates were inaccurate	Creation	Reduce scope of project. Re-access deliverables to reprio and reduce time. Seek an increase in budget.
10		Scheduling overruns	Planning, Creation	Use matrix to identify stakeholders, responsibility, and those impacted. Schedule, then be accountable to schedule
11		Legal review problems. Representatives of large companies sometimes underestimate the amount of legal review needed for product content, and projects can stretch out for months and months because our contact didn't know how long it would take.	Planning	Learn to ask the right questions. Learn who in a typical organization you need to speak to. And build measures to take to deal with this, should it come up, into the SOW so there will be money to deal with it if it comes up (this also puts the problem back in the hands of the client!).
12		Resources building the deliverable do not have the right skillset	Creation	Have checklist/requirements defined better in planning phase
13		A key worker in the project could leave in the middle of the work without enough time to cover what they did or train.	Planning, Management	Clearly document tasks and progress so it's easy for someone else to pick up and continue.
14		Takes longer than planned.	Management	Set project milestones that need to be met.
15		New stakeholder involvement changes direction.	Creation	Establish scope and key stakeholders very early in the project.
16		Employee turnover during course of development	Creation	- document decisions and processes along the way to help new team members get up to speed quickly - introduce redundancy when possible - shared responsibilities
17		We might finish and roll out the project and get low stakeholder adoption or actual stakeholder revolt against the new content.	Promotion	Conduct stakeholder engagement/polling/feedback activities throughout planning and creation stages. This would be an example of risk mitigation.
18		The end result does not meet the original goal.	Creation, Promotion	include more checkpoints along the way.
19		Go over budget (I.e., time & resources)	Creation, Measurement	Accurate project management (for me, easier said than done...)
20		It kills lead flow	Planning, Creation	Test, plan for plan B
21		Incorrect content.	Planning	Investigate and collaborate with other teams and customers to ensure content is appropriate.
22		Key writer resigns	Creation	Assign backups at start
23		content publishing is hauled due to no designer resources are available or shifted to do a higher priority project	Creation	Analyze projects based on potential ROI and prioritize against
24		Invested in the wrong channel	Planning, Creation	Look at 70-20-10 rule. Invest 70 in most common channel customer engage in, 20 in newer channels and 10 for experimental channel
25		Synchronization of translated assets with the English (Source language) masters.	Creation	Separate workflows with gating elements. New version number tracking to identify version updates for content vs updates for translation quality.
26		Client says they want to generate content to drive traffic and conversions, but at the end of the day, month, year client drops the content creation ball.	Creation, Management	Find out if the client has ever, blogged, tweeted, facebooked before.
27		Merger or acquisition takes place in the middle of the project	Creation	Have a plan a, B, C
28		Merger or acquisition takes place during winter project implementation	Creation	Have a plan a, B, C
29		(As an agency) Getting the initial "buy in" from clients on content concept and project, yet after the initial excitement of the new content project wears off so does the client's commitment and resources.	Creation	Need to not only get buy in from the upper management, but set solid deadlines and get dedicated resources from client. Have authority to manage all resources in the content creation process. Lay out projected ROI for project to show importance and value.
30		Not enough resources allocated to the project due to increased scope and no change in timeline.	Creation	* Determine if the scope adjustments are required. If so, see if the go to market date can slip. * Review other projects and determine if you can leverage those resources. If so, determine the impact on that project. * Use contractors to fill the gap.
31		Project sponsors change strategies midstream.	Creation	Verify Sr mgmt buy-in on goals and strategy.