2. Are marketing, PR, internal communications and/or HR the ‘owner’ of the web?

Who is seen as the owner has a big impact on setting the agenda for the web within the organisation. It also influences how different parts of the organisation engage in the operational aspects of the web.

The challenge if areas like communications or HR ‘own’ the internet or intranet is they tend to be involved in support functions rather then being at the ‘core’ of running the business and the web often reflects this. Typically, the primary focus will be content publishing with perhaps a few supporting applications, such as staff access to HR functions on the intranet. In this situation elements of the governance could be strong but narrow. For example, there will be strict controls over branding and stringent content approval processes. Other important activities that fall outside of traditional content publishing will be poorly governed, including: coding standards, management of the infrastructure, accessibility, application development, etc.

More importantly, for many organisations the web environment is much more then just content and a few support applications. It is place for activities that are more central to the business. The governance needs to be able guide, control and manage the risks associated with this increasingly important roll of the for the organisation’s web presence. In this scenario a simplistic assigned ‘ownership’ approach to governance is likely to be insufficient.

Good
There are clear roles and responsibilities around the operational activities. For larger web sites this is typically achieved using a dedicated web team.

However, the web is seen as being part of supporting broader business activities; not just owned by one or two business area or solely the responsibility of the web team. There are identified business owners for all of the various content areas and services. Critically, these owners are engaged in maintenance and on ongoing development.

Better
There are clear champions of the internet and intranet as business tool. People in these roles have; the ability to engage and influence others in the development of vision and objectives, the authority to make decisions, the personal networks to resolve problems that lie the outside web teams direct control, and finally there are able to assess and manage risks.

There are also mechanisms that are capable of coordinating and assigning ownership to those involved in the various roles from day-to-day operations to senior strategic roles.

Best
The organisation is able to identify and adjust the governance roles required to match the strategic objectives of the various uses of the web sites. For example if the public facing web site only needs to be basic cooperate information and a ‘contact us’ page then roles are keep simple. However, if more complex activities such as online service delivery are being deployed then governance roles are adjusted to reflex the increased risk and the inter-dependence with other parts of the organisation.