How we built a priority framework for Content Designers

As a content designer/UX writer, there are high chances that you’ve been working with several product teams, while setting up content design tools and processes, and being asked to intervene on topics where you’ve been mistaken for a proofreader. Or a translator. Or a copywriter.

At OpenClassrooms, we’ve set up a tool to help us to prioritize and work only on projects where we have the highest value and impact. Let me walk you through step-by-step how we built the tool, how we use it now, the results, and next steps.

Let’s take a step back first. Designing effective solutions, solving well-identified user problems through content, is only possible when you’re able to deep dive into the smallest set of projects. Especially, if you still need to evangelize content design. Prioritizing, thus being able to focus, will help you deliver real value and meet the key results, instead of being a content firefighter working with Lorem Ipsum.

Focus is also key to keep some form of sanity. Being everywhere means being nowhere. It also means having a huge cognitive load. Of course, documentation, and organization can help. But as organized as you might be, working with a limited set of projects (where you can have the most value) and saying no to other projects, will be the most efficient way of staying afloat and in control.

Just saying no isn’t enough, though. You need to show why you say no and how you came to the decision. This is where a framework is helpful. It allows you to calculate the value of topics using the same set of criteria, adding rationale to decisions that you can document and communicate.

Prioritization is a well-known topic at OpenClassrooms. Product Managers (PMs) use the RICE framework to decide which initiatives (an initiative is a project where we solve business and user problems) are going to be in the roadmap, and in what order.

We needed a similar system that would allow us to reprioritize what was already prioritized by PMs, but with different criteria. We also needed to identify what value really meant for content design, while developing processes for out-of-scope and not prioritized projects.

The team already had some ideas around the criteria we could use to assess the initiatives, when and how we should use it. We even had a v1 of the tool in a Google Sheet. We created criteria such as:

We took the opportunity of the 2022 product design roadmap to make the priority framework my priority. It allowed me, as the owner of the initiative, to have dedicated time, definition of done, give visibility to other teams, and work with identified contributors.

And to set key results to measure the success of the initiative.

Along with building the tool, we defined an objective for the end of 2022: at least 80% of our operational time should be spent on high value projects. We came to this number thanks to a rough estimation conducted at the end of 2021.

At that time, we knew that we didn’t want to do project after project, kind of like an agency. We wanted to be fully embedded in the squads in order to have a clear vision of a specific functional scope. At that time, there were about 10 squads and 4 content designers, including our manager.

We identified that some squads had less user-facing scope, which meant they could work without Content Designers. The squads’ distribution within the team evolved a bit, but we tried to stick with working with 2 squads max, and 2 projects at the same time.

These constraints were more guiding stars than set in stone: we needed to stay flexible as the organization evolved.

Then, it was time for some archeology. I gathered what was already said in Slack channels, shared in Google Sheets comments, written in Notion and in slides decks. With the other Content Designers, we agreed that the initiatives having the lowest scores should be prioritized. On the other hand, initiatives with higher scores would mean that the content design should be led by a Product Designer.

Here are our definitions:

The criteria were already existing, I just refined the keys and definition. At first, we had a lot of criteria. We decided to split them into major (the ones we were filling out each time) and the minor criteria (the ones we were filling out if the score of the initiative was too close to another).

At this point, it was obvious that Google Sheet wasn’t the right tool. We moved where the product roadmap was: in Notion. I’ve deepened my knowledge of Notion databases and tables to come up with the actual tool: 1 priority framework per Content Designer.

Along with criteria, we also added information related to content design needs and defined what each level of intervention means in terms of task responsibility. The goal was to remove as much uncertainty as possible.

To be able to analyze the time spent, and reach our objective (80% of operational time spent on high value projects). We use Jira to track our time through tickets. I simply added a new field to our content design tickets.

The data was accessible through an analytics dashboard where we could see if we were on track or not, in the blink of an eye.

Now that the tool was set up, the team started to use it. It quickly transpired that we needed to define common usage guidelines about how and when to use it. I gathered Product Designers and another Content Designer to workshop it together.

Using the burger technique, we identified what (the ingredients) each role should give to each other in order to build initiatives (the final burger). Then we stapled this into an initiative to see concretely how it could work.

We built a Notion page that briefly re-explained our scope and added tools and partner contact details for proofreading and translation.

When ready, we communicated it the priority framework both to the product and tech teams, and our main stakeholders.

Over the last quarter, the content design team spent 83% of their time on high value initiatives. The team succeeded! It means that 3 years after the creation of the team, we’re able to identify where we can have the most impact and value, beforehand. It also means that we managed to have a better focus on initiatives through limiting the number of different projects on the go at once.

As you can see, I’m personally a bit below the objective. As the owner of the initiative, that beats everything! 😉

Even if the priority framework is useful for team organization and to give visibility on where we work, it’s today quite long and complex to fill out. One of the next steps will be to simplify it and totally embed it in the Notion page of product roadmap initiatives.

But that’s a story for another time!

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