[Sigia-l] Results from IA & org structure survey

[Michael Rabjohns]

Here are the results from a question I posted on Sigia & AIfIA in December,
asking which org structures other firms have chosen, and whether or not
they're working. In particular, I was interested how IA and Metrics (aka
Measurement & Analytics) should relate.

I received 15 responses, several of which went into considerable detail on
the pros and cons of different org structures, of which I've included three.
Thanks to everyone who responded. Results as follows:
 
Where respondents work/have worked:
5 working in Industry/Public Sector
6 at Agencies
4 unknown
 

How IA fits into their current org structure, or other firms they've worked
at (one respondent gave two answers):

IA & Metrics are separate and equal parts of a Web Services team (5
responses)

IA is part of User Experience or Creative Services, Metrics is part of
Strategy or Client Services (4 responses)

IA part of Creative (along with Design, and/or Usability and HTML) (2)

Metrics reports to IA (2)

Creative, User Experience & Technology are separate and equal (1)

IA as part of production, IT, Creative, Strategy (1)

IA as part of Analysis & Design (along with Biz Analysts, Developers) or
Content Development team (1)


Excerpts

#1

IA should be part of creative, in turn part of an internal consulting group,
which gives your team more autonomy within the organization.
I don't recommend IA reporting to IT. It usually means that your
organization doesn't understand what IA is or where it fits into the overall
process.


#2

The best setup is IA, Usability, Metrics & Visual Design as separate & equal
disciplines within Web Services. From an org chart perspective, each team
sits at the same level which has helped us spawn more creativity and 'out of
the box' thinking. These teams need to work together, not for one another...


#3
Ideally, Creative, User Experience, and Technology are three interdependent
groups, each at the same level. This helps to eliminate many painful
political battles in corporate culture. When we've seen this structure in
place, it works very well. Each group feels equally represented. This helps
facilitate buy-in across the groups. And a representative is brought in from
each group at the very beginning. When this is done, the overall development
timeline decreases, the product is typically more usable, and support and
training costs are reduced.

When UE lives under Creative, well, then we'll tend to see most of the
initiatives lead by Marketing. In this case, we've seen things like visual
comps presented first to clients, then the IA. Well, that creates a mess as
now the client keeps wondering why the wireframes don't look like the visual
comps. Or visual comps are presented to the client prior to any
IA/Interaction work being done. It's kind of like writing the chapter titles
before you know what the chapters are going to be about. This leads to
seemingly endless cycles of rework.

When UE lives under IT, well, then we see the "slap the UI on at the end to
clean up the mess" mentality. Or, we'll build something that will "work" and
make it look good later. Then the group at large has a hard time
understanding why the product is difficult and confusing to use, has higher
bail out rates, and increased training and support costs. Again, seemingly
endless cycles of rework. Or just leave it as it is and deal with the
additional costs.