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If you’re new to the job of rationalising the web presence of a global corporation, it’s a bit like being made head gardener of an estate that’s been left to go wild for a while. The problem isn’t that nothing’s growing – in fact local content is popping up all over the place. And some of that content is good – totally appropriate to the local market. The problem is that the growth hasn’t been controlled and channelled. So as you look out over the fertile landscape, you’re wondering where on earth you begin. Rufus Leonard has helped a few gardeners over the years – here’s how we would apply our experience to this kind of challenge.

Plan: Start by surveying the land
If you’re going to bring order to the garden, we have to understand exactly what’s growing there. It may look a mess, but there will be best practice and good ideas on local websites that can be propagated globally. Unfortunately head offices in many global companies don’t know what their regional offshoots are achieving online. This is an opportunity to bring everyone together and share experience.

There are a number of questions you need to address at this stage. How do you want to deal with structure, design, content and your technology platform? Do you bring about internal change through evolution or revolution? You will have a chance to save money by bringing everyone together to rationalise everything in one go, but you’ll need to do so without alienating your stakeholders or risking disruption in the rollout of your new platform. This is where identifying short term and long term needs with your core team and site owners will ensure they feel like they’re being listened to.

Research: Do you need the pruning shears or napalm?
In order to understand what shape garden you need and to clear the dead wood you need to conduct serious research. The most important people in this process are your users. Identifying their needs is essential. You can then identify what should stay and what needs to go. You also ascertain how big your problem is – whether you prune or slash and burn. User research will give you a neutral rationale to use as leverage with your stakeholders.

Whatever changes your research leads you to implement, you need to be strong in implementing it. Define specific criteria by which existing content and functionality should be judged. Push for the tools and information your users say they need. Conversely, if they’ve said they don’t need something, weed it out without sentimentality. Don’t hang onto it because one of your stakeholders has put months of efforts into it.

Strategy: Agree the shape of your patch
Now you have definitive user research and an understanding of the task ahead, you need to agree a strategy with your internal stakeholders. Facilitating agreement around a single solution will be challenging, but it needs to be done at this stage to create the garden your user wants. When you have established common ground between everyone early, they’re more likely to pull together later on.

As well as the user requirements you’ve discovered at the research stage, you need to take on board additional requirements, such as local cultural needs or IT constraints. You have to understand your competitive positioning through benchmarking with your web and brand stakeholders. You may have to arbitrate between brand and web teams, or indeed core team and local site owners. The key to this (as well as diplomacy) is intelligently prioritising tasks in the overall project.

Design: Picking the flowers
You’re ready to begin picking the flowers that will adorn your flowerbeds, in other words your website interfaces. To create functional harmony, it’s important to select a single architecture and navigation logic. A consistent look and feel to create a solid global identity for your brand is also essential. However, this needs to be balanced against sensitivity to local diversity. Insist on compromise when necessary to create a framework that accommodates both. The last thing you want is for local users to be alienated by bland homogenised design that doesn’t resonate with any of them.

Guidelines: Tell your gardeners where to plant
Like a detailed map of the proposed landscape for your garden, comprehensive guidelines ensure the site build will go smoothly. Enforce the guidelines rigorously. Your gardeners need to understand your vision and know exactly where to plant. If you spend time getting guidelines right, it’ll save twice as much time as putting right dozens of local sites afterwards.

Target different audiences with your guidelines – at those who will build, maintain and police. And accept that guidelines are living documents – accept that they will change as your brand and technology develop.

Build: The planting begins
So now your global team of gardeners are out there in their wellies, ready to start digging. It’s important they have all the tools they need. Providing all assets (for instance, PSDs) pre-cut in a comprehensive library will speed things up immensely. As will building teams with the right skills across the globe. Your role will be to keep everyone true to your vision of how the garden should be. You’ll need to be the motivator and the organiser. And the enforcer, as you police the local development work. This is where the investment in guidelines will pay off – as you won’t need to tour the world making sure everything is consistent.

Maintenance: Allowing for growth
As soon as it’s planted, your garden will begin to grow and change. Controlling that growth will be your primary task. The guidelines will help, so it’s crucial they’re kept up to date. A well drilled team of country web managers will also help – so keep the team who implemented the initial build together. Regularly hold meetings to discuss web strategy and to share best practice and learning.

Sit back and enjoy the view?
Well, you might be able to for a short while, but there will always be challenges that’ll call you away from your deckchair and Pimms. The role of head gardener is by its nature cyclic – you’ll never be able to enjoy your garden as a static creation. You need to be a constant gardener. 

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