When should organizational content be private?

One thing you learn very early on in consulting (if you don’t – uh-oh!) is that organizational cultures vary drastically. There are many different dimensions to this. Some organizations are very open and honest – perhaps to a fault – and others tend to keep most things hidden from other groups or people. Regardless of the culture, though, content lifecycles matter a lot.

I was asked recently by someone in a more open organization why some content should be kept private versus be published on an Intranet. Here are some reasons I tend to use to illustrate what some content should be “private” – and there are varying degrees of privacy, of course.

1. Content which is in progress – When you are working on something, it usually just doesn’t make sense for everyone to see it. Sometimes we start working in OneDrive, but usually in a team setting – a site or a Team where our colleagues can work with us. Once the content is “done” (which can mean different things for different Content Types), we publish to a more public place.
2. Content which should have limited viewership – One easy example would be a salary spreadsheet. We should store content in a container which has the right permissions, allowing only the right people to see it. Keep in mind that search can surface content, even if we don’t have specific navigation links to it.
3. Content which simply isn’t relevant to everyone or is outdated – People often say that search sucks, and a big reason for that is it returns too many results, sometimes results which contradict each other. An example would be a process document which has been updated multiple times, each with a different filename. Only the most current version should be public, though you may well want to keep the historical versions for your team.

A big part of how I think about this is from the perspective of the content lifecycle. There’s a visual I created for the Maturity Model for Microsoft 365 in the Management of Content Competency which also helps think this through:

Create – Content creation is sometimes a sort of dirty business. We may throw a bunch of ideas against the wall to see what sticks. I sometimes call this the “sausage factory”. It’s not a place that many people should ever see.

Iterate – There’s naturally some iteration in the content creation process. We may take a very different tack in the beginning but based on interactions with our close colleagues or research, we may revise a particular piece of content multiple times.

Review – Depending on the type of content, it may need some sort of review. That review process can be anything from saying “Yup, it’s time” to needing every group in the organization to comment, share with their employees for comment, and sign off.

Publish – Only once the content is truly ready is it time to publish it – whether to a slightly larger group or to the entire organization. Publishing can take multiple forms, but when it comes to the Intranet, it’s generally to copy the content into that public place.

Consume – While the content is still valid and useful, people should be able to consume it easily and readily. This means we need to give them simple ways to get to it when they need it. That means things like good navigation, good search configuration, and more. Which mechanisms are most important will vary with the type of content.

Feedback – While the content is available to others, ideally, we have a good way for people to give us feedback. Sometimes the feedback is in the form of questions, or sometimes it’s suggestions to make the content more clear or useful. We should be open to that feedback and try to react to it somehow during the content’s useful lifespan.

Note that we use this image to describe Level 400 behavior on the Management of Content Competency. That’s a pretty mature approach, and you may not get there with every type of content. One would hope you’d aspire to this level of sophistication with content that is highly important to your organization, especially if it is used widely. Also, look at the way the arrows flow: a powerful content lifecycle includes regular revision, not just because a timer has run out (we may review certain types of documents once a year, for example), but also based on feedback during that time period.

In summary, deciding which content should be publicly available vs. only available to a smaller group will depend on the organizational culture, the type of content, and where that content is in its lifecycle.

How do you make these decisions in your organization?