The ANAO highlights the importance of governance

A recently published review on the management of Commonwealth web sites by the ANAO has in my mind confirmed many of the themes raised in this blogg. From my initial reading the majority of the findings and recommendations are tied closely to how agencies approach governance of their web activities. Summarising the summary, the report suggests that Commonwealth agencies:

1. Clarify the purpose of their web sites, ensure these align with business goals, and review this periodically
2. Extend risk management planning to include web sites
3. Improve the management content through a combination of; periodic review, better defining responsibilities and implementing supporting business process
4. Monitor and report on the cost of websites

The full details of the report

Government Agencies’ Management of their Websites, The Auditor General - Audit Report No.13 2008–09, Australian National Audit Office, 2008

Why measuring performance is important

A number of the articles discussed in other post on this blog list measuring the performance of the organisations web activities as being important. I’ve found two articles that deal specifically with why measuring performance is valuable and how to approach governance for this important activity.

Measuring Your Web Site's Return on Investment: Whoever isn't measuring ROI on their Web site is crazy, because it is measurable (Mary K. Pratt, May 07)
Key premises of the article is measuring ROI on websites can be an effective method of assessing performance as well as improving in decisions making. Some relevant points:

• Use ROI as a way of defining what is important to the company – don’t just measure everything
• For ROI to be a useful business objectives of the site must be understood
• ROI is useful for comparing ‘what if’ situations and considering the impact of decisions that are outside of the web site, i.e. cost on other parts the business.

Web analytics governance: who’s in charge? (Hurol Inan, Feb 08)
This blog discussed why good governance of the web analytics is important. The post also includes some examples of how various organisation are approaching governance of analytics. Interesting points include:

• What is measured needs to match the web site strategies
• A lack of governance for the analytic activities can mean inconstant measurement
• Web analytics governance model should be a subset of the general governance structure, with a steering committee charged with the task of defining expectations, granting power and verifying performance.

1. Is performance measured using crude numbers such as hits, visits or ranking?

How the performance of a web site is monitored and ultimately used is an indicator of the strategic view of the web in your organisation. Crude numbers don’t say anything particularly useful about the site and if decisions are being made based on these then the organisation is probably flying blind. Worse still these numbers can not be matched in a meaningful way to strategic business objectives so it is difficult to gauge if the organisation’s web activities are adding value.

Good
‘Web Stats’ are analysed and reports are reviewed in finer detail. This could include examining reports such as; entry/exit pages, most popular pages, 404 errors and bad request, path analyses, search engine terms, referring pages, etc. These are generally used by the operational team to ‘tune’ the site. The stats are also used in some way in the decision making and goal setting for the web activities.

Better
Key stakeholders engaged with the analytics, ask questions about their services and content. Simple numbers are questioned and there is more interested how the web presence is meeting user’s needs. To understand if this is happening more complex indicators begin to be used such as user behaviour, engagement level and satisfaction. These are inturn used in some way to help inform request for improvements and plan new developments.

Best
The organisation uses a detailed, comprehensive and multifaceted approach to performance measurements. This starts with identifying strategic objectives and defining how to measure these. A combination of qualitative and quantitative measures are use, for example; web stats ‘analytics’, market research, focus group testing, user surveys, benchmarking, etc. Critically, these are reported to those involved in making strategic decisions and are used as part of an assessment of the cost and value of the web presence, perhaps using a methodology such as ROI.