Common Taxonomy Categories

There is no shortcut to developing a taxonomy for your organization.  However, after many months of developing taxonomies for large corporations, small corporations, government agencies, academic organizations, and research organization, a few common patterns have arisen.  Although the categories or ideas below don't make up a taxonomy, any top-level taxonomy is going to have to support the following:

1. Money.   This doesn't mean the finance or accounting departments, but the entity known as money within the organization.  Money is a symbolic way to track and measure the flow of energy through the system, and it has unique rules and constraints.  Money has its own legal constraints, reporting best practices, permissions, and nomenclature.
2. People.  Every organization has people, and people are described by a common set of statistics.  There are special laws to govern how people are managed, what information can be gathered, and how that information can be used.
3. One to Many Communication.  The organization needs to be able to transmit information to one or more audiences.  This is one way communication from the organization to individuals or other organizations.  Examples include: news, press releases, financial reports, stock reports, catalogs, advertisements, and so on.
4. Many to Many Communication.  Examples include SharePoint collaboration sites, forums, chat rooms, instant messaging, videoconferencing, and other interactive strategies.  Email is not really a many to many communication channel, but it has been forced into that role because of the huge pent up demand for collaboration and the lack of effective collaborative business tools.
5. Many to One Communication.  This includes surveys, complaints, product ordering, requests for information, and other methods of aggregating information from numerous sources.
6. Official Corporate Record.  This category covers documents that have been invested with policy authority by being formally approved by an officer of the organization.  In other words, these are documents that speak on behalf of the organization as a whole.
7. Work in Progress.  These are documents that are in development or serve an informal purpose.  In short, the organization doesn't want to be sued over the contents of these documents as they have not been invested with policy authority.

In my workshops I use these concepts, and actual examples of successful business taxonomies, to help you and your team develop a stable and effective taxonomy for your organization.