Case study: content migration

In July 2016, I started work at the AA as senior copywriter. Join us, they said. It's an exciting time of complete transformation, they said. We need you to sort our content, they said.

When I got there, two of the main (commercially critical) phases had already been completed. And I had got there in time for the lull. Although this was great for me - I had airspace to meet people, talk to the team, find out where the pain points were, roles and responsibilities, and ways of working.

During my time in digital transformation, I had to learn a lot of code words (apparently you need a covert way of saying something everyone already knows about), a brand new CMS systems (Sitecore 8) and back-end system (Pega). Plus, all the processes, brand guidelines and organisational structure. Standard stuff.

However, I'm a copywriter by trade. I've qualifications and experience in marketing and communications (all interlinked). That's it. I know the basics of HTML, CSS and what used to be called Adobe Creative Suite. I have a working knowledge of how digital works in terms of what's needed and time things take. What I'm trying to say is, I have the skills to my digital creative job well; from womb to tomb. But I'm by no means technical.

The processes I had to learn quickly were:

1. Working using Agile methodology
2. Redirecting links from the old platform (Teamsite) to the new one (Sitecore), so if anyone searches for that page in Google it'll take them to the new page, not the old one.
3. Weekly release schedule for pushing new pages live
4. List of pages that have a blanket rule for go-live, so if an editor publishes it immediately visible to the public
5. Developing new templates and components to make them fit for content purposes
6. Bug reporting and fixing

The main thing I was brought on to do was content. There was no tone of voice and the main areas of the site had been migrated as a lift and shift exercise.

1. An embedded tone of voice use religiously by the team of editors
2. A content strategy, including an audit of what pages are being migrated, what's being deleted and what pages are a priority.
3. Robust plan of what's been migrated and when; ensuring there's plenty of time built in for full rewrites and sign off.
4. PSD files and wireframes for each part of the website to be migrated (we only had landing pages factored in)
5. A review of all templates and components for editorial functionality - this includes input and training by the editorial team.
6. All the assets are licensed, sized and fit-for-purpose.

None of this had happened. So I had to amalgamate four different TOVs, three of which were supplied by different agencies and consisted of a lot of guff about basic principles. Not really helpful when getting a team up to speed. Once I had rolled out the tone of voice and the documentation needed, I worked on the rest. With varying levels of impact.

Migration means picking your battles. For me, getting the tone, design and journey right for what was left was paramount - as it might never be revisited. The rest could go on the backlog and be completed retrospectively.

It was all hands to the pump. The team was made up of lifers and contractors, at all levels. My main challenge was that despite there being a publishing arm of the business, the thinking was archaic. I had a team full of capable editors, but no copywriters. And they were jaded, who didn't take ownership of what they were producing.

However, the biggest challenge was the historic incompetencies of the ghosts of managers past. They didn't understand content, the publishing process, editorial or the strategic/commercial side of the business. The team's transformation was a turbulent one, with clashes aplenty and weak leadership who side-lined them from the rest of the digital department, meaning they always got the raw end of the deal.

If I've learnt one thing from transformation, it's to always employ solid subject matter experts who are capable of leading. And make sure you build a team who gel, knowledge share and passionate about what they do.

It wasn't long before my manager left the business and I step into his shoes, taking on the interim Head of Content role. The baton to plan the next phases was passed to me, but by that point, working practices had been established and I was merely slotting into a running machine. And what I discovered was a can of worms; the production plan was a checklist, all sign-offs and releases were managed by one person, there were no briefs, the team were underskilled, they were excluded from the show and tells by the developers, there was no define quality process, they weren't using Jira or Confluence to create an audit trail of their work and the content was the only thing that wasn't transforming.

I did manage to spread the TOV gospel, change ways of working and position the editorial team as an intrinsic part of the transformation, not just the monkeys who churned out web pages.

If I were to do it all again, I'd rather work from scratch. It's quite rare you're given that luxury, especially as a consultant. So, next time:

• Effect full content audit with specific editors assigned to it for accountability
• Ensure there's a comprehensive, phased migration schedule
• Emulsify with various business areas to develop a website with functionality that's suitable for rich marketing content, not just functional information
• Embed a content strategy before migration begins
• Enforce new ways of working and processes
• Educate the business about content