Too many articles and blogs (ours included) have set out to define Content Strategy, called it King, whitewashed it as “content marketing/SEO.” Some have hyped it with agendas and sales pitches, others with heartfelt enthusiasm for the buzzword d’jour.

The more I think about Content Strategy, the more I see it centered in and around project scope. As budgets tighten, content measurability logic matures and ROI has a smaller and smaller proof of concept window. Defining a robust scope for CS-related projects is paramount for all involved.

For the Client

At the simplest level, scope defines what the vendor is going to accomplish for price of the contract.

In my experience, there are four client attitudes about scope:

• Those who see the value in digging to the root of the problem and do have the budget
• Those who see the value in digging to the root of the problem but don’t have the budget
• Those who don’t see the value in digging to the root of the problem
• Those who don’t see the value in digging to the root of the problem because they don’t have a budget

And there are two strategies clients administer for scope definition:

• The formal RFP process (Scope is brought to the table as part of RFP)
• The relationship process (Client comes to table with loose scope and the practitioner digs deeper)

For the Vendor

Scope defines what the vendor is and isn’t responsible for.

I’ve spoken with some other agencies and this is what I hear about scope:

• Clients with  the bigger budget get the better end-product
• There is cheap, good and fast—pick two
• I’ll work with you as much as I can, but at the end of the day we all need to make money
• There are no problems, only opportunities, but opportunities cost money to investigate

On the vendor side, there are two methods of scope definition and estimation.

• Plan for the worst and price accordingly
• Price reasonably and define what is and isn’t included, and carefully outline rates for out of scope work

The problem with these methods of thinking about scope (for both parties) is that the balance between the “best solution” and the “appropriate price” are at odds. The RFP is often not broad enough to get to the heart of the problem. And the vendor can only solve what he/she has access to, both politically and financially. So what usually happens is the client will cut what doesn’t seem relevant, fit the budget, or have a clear ROI. And the vendor will reduce services/deliverables to maintain profitability.

Scope Management

Scope Management, a content strategists’ most powerful tool, is often as much about Change Management (a.k.a. getting everyone to agree that there is an elephant in the room) as much as it is about Content Strategy. Proper Scope Management empowers the vendor to perform the difficult, time-intensive work and empowers the client to tackle real change at the root level. A project may be RFP’ed for a new website on an existing infrastructure—while the answer may lie in a CMS assessment that is outside that scope. Scope is not about padding the bill, it is about finding the best solution and implementing it.

Content Strategy is the tool that unearths and assembles the puzzle pieces spread across legacy systems, marketing agendas, newsletters, content, code, DB’s and design.* CS will grow in proportion to the depth it digs, both across other practices and intra-project. The marriage of Scope Management and Content Strategy requires content strategists to push for the deeper digging and clients to be open to a little more work for a much greater return.

*Not all the puzzles pieces are listed. And there is no picture on the box.

—Ian

Twitter me @eatmedia

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 at 3:19 pm and is filed under Content Marketing, Content Strategy, Editorial. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.