1. Identify Goals, Requirements, and Constraints

It is important to have well-defined goals that will allow you to create a content workflow process that best supports those goals from the start. Understanding requirements such as quality, quantity, topic coverage, word counts, and article lengths helps you estimate and allocate resources. Be aware of your constraints, as they will ultimately limit your goals and requirements. We recommend starting with a list for each of these three factors to help direct the content workflow plan.

2. Define Tasks

Create a list of every step in the content creation process, including idea generation, writing, graphic design, proofreading/editing, approvals, translations, scheduling, publishing, and promotion. Once you have identified the steps that will satisfy all of your stated requirements, begin to order them. Take note of which steps must precede or follow others to avoid creating backtracking or unnecessary revisions. For example, don’t perform a translation before the original is approved – otherwise, you will waste time redoing the translation.

3. Determine the Purpose

Identifying key stakeholders for the entire process is key, as someone has to be the decision-maker. These people will be responsible for interim and final approvals, conflict resolution, breaking ties in votes, and any other high-level decision-making tasks. Allowing your process to have too many stakeholders can spell disaster. We recommend selecting one person who has the final word, with the possibility of buy-in from 2-3 other stakeholders, for any piece of content.

4. List Your People

Identify the people you already have to cover each of the defined tasks, and decide whether you may need to assign or hire additional resources or provide training. Make sure not to exceed any of your constraints during this step, as your human resource costs will most likely form the bulk of your total content expenditures.

5. Create a Visual Diagram

You may find it helpful to diagram your project management workflow using symbols to represent key personnel, tasks, or phases in the content assembly line. Once you have added symbols, order them and draw connectors between them to indicate flow. Try to make the workflow diagram linear with as few circular patterns as possible. If a piece of content returns to the same person (excluding the project manager) multiple times, you may have a misordered or redundant workflow.

6. Define your Starting and Finishing Points

It is important to understand your true starting and finishing points for a piece of content. Ask yourself where a piece of content begins: in the brainstorming phase, as a request from a director, or an SEO manager? Likewise, you should also know when you are done working on it. Do you plan to promote your content after it’s created on social media or other channels? If so, you may want to consider adding these steps to your overall workflow, especially if they are required for each piece of content.

7. Diagram User Flow

Diagramming user flow through a site that supports your content, purpose, and audience will help to improve the user experience. Creating diagrams allows you to plot the actual paths visitors take through the site, from page to page. You may uncover unexpected dead ends, excessive clicking, or other navigational issues. Your diagram may include separate paths for different types of audience members.

8. Order Tasks by Project and People

Assign people to tasks and look for ways to group and reorganise them slightly. This will reduce handoffs between people and make it easier to cover more of their tasks without interruption. You may need to experiment with the groupings and orderings after some real-life trial and error, as things don’t always work as outlined on paper. Don’t feel constrained by the first plan you create; be free to test and optimise as you see fit.

9. Build a Process for Revisions

Most certainly, you will need to make revisions, especially if you are primarily concerned with content quality. Be sure to include branching points in your content workflow so that if a revision is needed, the people involved know what to expect. Those changes that have little or no effect on future steps can be grouped and addressed all at one time. Do not proceed if your next steps rely heavily on a prior task that needs changes.