The document discusses how legacy content and code can accumulate over time in content management systems due to a lack of governance, clear guidelines, and cross-functional collaboration. It notes that both "content debt" and "technical debt" have the same root causes and solutions. The engineering team can help by focusing on user stories and desired outcomes rather than specific features, and by embedding themselves in cross-functional teams. This allows everyone to work towards common goals and prevent the buildup of both content and code that no longer meets organizational needs.

1. Content by Any Other Name
Amanda Krauss, Director of Engineering Strategy
The Texas Tribune
ConFab 2016

2. Where I work
Small news organization
Lots of page views
No dedicated UX person
Small, agile team
Embedded in newsroom

3. Technical Debt
● The code equivalent of content bloat
● The thing that gets in the way when a programmer is trying
to make an addition or change

4. Where There Is Legacy Content, There Is Legacy Code

5. The CMS as “This Old House”

6. The CMS as “This Old House”
Trying to add a feature in a CMS system with technical debt is
like trying to renovate a kitchen and finding out that the parts
needed no longer exist, the load-bearing beam is in the wrong
place, and replacing the lightbulb will destroy the wiring in the
entire house.
It’s no fun!

7. How Did We Get Here?

8. How Did We Get Here?
Mean developer response: “What is this stuff doing in my code?”
Compassionate response: This line of code represents someone’s
hopes and dreams to publish something on the site.
Start asking why existing code was put here. Also start asking
why? before you write new code.

9. Q: “Can we put a link here?”
A: Why? If your goal is to get people looking at your content, a
link may not the right solution.

10. Legacy Code Problems That Are Actually Legacy Content
Problems
● 50 interactive pages using unsupported technology
● Free-range ad units wandering around in the code
● A regular page model with no author or date attached, that is
used to house many different types of interactive content

11. Photo by Viktor Hancek via picjumbo.com

12. Content Debt and Tech Debt Have The Same Cause
Lack of clarity in organizational process
Lack of governanace
Lack of clear guides
Lack of clarity in desired outcome and success metrics

13. Content Debt and Tech Debt Have The Same Solution
Cross-organizational governance
Style and design guides
Clarity regarding outcomes, goals and success metrics
Cross-functional planning

14. It Takes a Village
Photo by Viktor Hancek via picjumbo.com

15. How Can The Engineering Team Help?
How can we, as the engineering team, make sure our own
process helps the organization?

16. User Stories Instead of Feature Requests:
As a [role], I want [a thing], so that [outcome].
(Bonus points: evangelize the process.)
This lets us (and everyone) participate in the why and how of solving a problem,
rather than telling us to build a pre-determined technical solution.

17. Ship Outcomes Not Features
(HT @kzhu!)
This allows everyone involved to focus on the desired outcome, from the kickoff. PS:
Engineers like analytics on what they’ve built!

18. If there’s no dedicated strategist,
everyone has to move their role a
little more towards the center.
Slide from Hilary Marsh, Build Your Content Strategy

19. What Else?
“You’re not really a digital media organization if you have a tech
team” - Trei Brundrett, Chief Product Officer of Vox Media
Meaning, your developers -- and everyone -- should be
embedded in cross-functional product/project teams
Hire a Content Engineer, who knows about content modeling in
the database and the metadata.

20. Further Reading
● Melody Kramer’s post on how we get into content debt
● 18F’s series on technical debt
● “Why Great Products Need Great Collaboration” (Good
introduction to cross-functional, user- and outcome-driven
process.)

21. Thank You!