Office of Communications and Consumer Information

Office of Communications and Consumer Information

Relaunch/redesign of nhtsa.gov(based on a true story)

Jim Schulte nhtsa.gov Content Manager

The Tiny Type: All opinions expressed – especially the really outlandish ones – are mine alone. No IT staff was harmed in the making of this website.


NHTSA.gov redesign & CMSimplementation: Challenges, successes,

really hard challenges, creativity… and what do you mean we won’t get any more money until 2007, maybe?

4 4

NHTSA.gov launched in 1996

Began as a billboard site; evolved to more consumer focus

Seemingly designed for the internal audience; organizational approach to

content presentation

No official owner or decision-maker; IT became default editor/owner

Two scariest issues

Daughter sites had sprung up

Content management? People’s memories

End result

Warehousing of content

Nobody really knew what was where and why, how old, or how much

We were more ready for reality than reality was ready for us

5 5

10. Impossible deadline

9. Very small project team

8. Huge internal skepticism

7. Covert foot-dragging / overt turf tussles

6. Taxonomy? What the hell do stuffed animals have to do with

anything?

5. Money, money, money, money

4. What do you mean we didn’t buy workflow?

3. I thought I was in charge? Who are you guys?

2. Site licenses? We don’t need no stinking site licenses!

1. We didn’t know what we didn’t know!

Top 10 key issues facing the project

6 6

The start

Internal discovery/decision process from Jan.-June ’04

Met with Knowledge Advantage Inc. and Infused Solutions early July

Chunked down project into Phases

The fears

Could we speak the same language?

Didn’t want a two-ton pencil with a four-ton eraser

Didn’t want a drive-by delivery

The finish

Launched Phase 1 beta for internal audiences feedback on Oct. 4

Went live on the web on Dec. 7

From zero to 60 in a relative nanosecond

9 9

What happened

No money, honey

What do you mean we didn’t pay for training?

Jettisoning key things to lightening the balloon

Shifting priorities: All consolidation, all the time

Champions leave, vacuum ensues

The impact

Phases 2-on are delayed

Expanding the user-base for the tool is delayed

Project has lost momentum; internal skepticism on the rise again

Reality bites: From 60 back to zero

10 10

We ain’t dead yet

Small-scale innovation and problem-solving

If you can’t change the tool, then change how you use it

Is anybody writing this down?

Build a test VCM as a test/staging server

Necessity is a mother … of invention, even

17 17

The takeaways

Designate an Al Haig; Clear authority on the decisions is paramount

Market to the internal audience, often and then some more; they can kill you,

or make you wish you were dead

Have a high-ranking champion … and a couple of white knights

It’s OK to be stupid; As long as you’re not afraid to ask questions

If you love it, set it free: Don’t get too wedded to a feature or function because

it might not survive triage and fighting to keep it could impact the project

Change hurts: Never underestimate the amount of

training/explaining/education you will have to do with your readers

Always try to break the tool/system as soon as possible

Choose well who you bring to the dance

If we had to do this over again …

18 18

Semper Gumby

or

Keep cool, but do not freeze

But when all else fails … try these words to live by


Jim Schulte 202.366.6651

[email protected]

Questions? Rebuttals? Arguments?

Office of Communications and Consumer Information

Documents

Transcript of Office of Communications and Consumer Information