With the “Mapping your end-to-end content journey and why it matters” about to run (and recorded on January 27, 2020 @ 12:00 PM GMT), I wanted to add some context on how the Content Supply Chain Advisory Service works and what I particularly enjoy about this kind of consulting.

First of all, I should mention that after 5 years working in a product capacity, I've returned to my hometown in the US as a business architect within professional services. It's exciting to bring my decade of background in content management to new projects and services, including our Content Supply Chain Advisory Service.

What, exactly a Content Supply Chain Advisory Service?

In short, it’s a service that we offer to review and analyze an organization's content and translation processes to offer suggestions for improvement. We discover both short-term and long-term gains from improvements in processes or technology.

The service starts with a kick-off meeting to confirm attendees for follow-up discovery sessions, what content to evaluate, and solicit existing information on current practices. We then run the discovery sessions to, well, discover how people work within their processes and technology tools. We avoid offering solutions during these sessions and focus on listening and capturing how your team members work.

It's important to have these sessions as cross-functional as possible so that we can get context for why people do what they do as well as connect separate parts of the customer's business. In day-to-day work, without the right context, it's often hard to really understand why certain work needs to be done or how the process could be improved.

Listening closely... (Photo by Sandy Millar on Unsplash)

In parallel to the sessions, we map out the end-to-end process map as a cross-functional workflow diagram. This diagram shows how a process starts, how it flows through the system, and where decisions are made. Though similar to a customer journey exercise which also looks at the who, what, where, how, when, and why the work that needs to be done, a content supply chain advisory service adds business impact to along the steps in the content supply chain. 

Finally, in the finding reveal session, we show the "as-is" map as well as a proposed "to-be" state along with the impact of the current way of working and possible return on investment (ROI) for changing.

Definitely register for and join the webinar if you can, otherwise stay tuned for the recording.

What I love about our advisory services...

I'll wrap up this post by sharing the things I love about this kind of work and process.

1. In-depth learning. It's quite rewarding to bring people together to listen and understand their experiences, which I've had the pleasure of experiencing through our Customer Research Program. What's even better is how customer participants are able to learn what their own colleagues do as well as the impact of actions taken up- or down-stream of a given step in the Content Supply Chain.
2. Cross-functional. Not only do we get to help the customer across our teams, but I also get to regularly work with our other business architects, consultants, and subject matter experts within the company. But this round, I'm not fielding as many product enhancement requests!
3. Beyond product. Though it's great to be back working closely with customers, I truly enjoyed working with and on Tridion from a product perspective. I'm looking forward to bring some of that product thinking and a UX mindset to our customer engagements while taking a broader, more strategic look at our customer challenges and opportunities. 
4. Listening. Again, the idea here isn't to quickly respond or solve problems on the spot but rather see how things are done, without critique or "solutioning." Though we will ultimately recommend ways to improve the customer's situation and share feedback back to product and UX, the discovery sessions aren't meant to solve the customer's problems on the spot or attempt to solicit product ideas. To suggest product enhancements, do check out SDL Ideas to review, vote, or even submit ideas. :-)

Did I mention we try to listen up front and then come back with recommendations? I should clarify it's not that I particularly love listening, but rather I've grown to appreciate its importance and continue to improve my own listening skills.

Do you have experience with content or localization workshops, end-to-end customer journeys, or evaluating a content supply chain? What did you like? What was challenging? I'm all ears! (Photo by kyle smith on Unsplash)