The best top-level site/policy taxonomies follow a "process arc."

KEY THOUGHT: Policy taxonomies should ideally be organized into a "process arc" that clearly tells the story of the organization's creation and use of information.

 

Having worked with policy taxonomies and the site structures they create, I've come to the strong opinion that the policy taxonomy should form a "process arc" if at all possible.  Not all organizations are strongly process-centric, so not all policy taxonomies will fit neatly into an arc.  On the other hand, your organization does have a process arc of some kind or it wouldn't be in business.  Find the process arc and align it with your policy taxonomy and you have a winning combination that is both intuitive and effective.

The diagram above shows a fairly typical process arc, in this case for a non-profit organization.  We worked for nearly eight hours to gather a broad range of information, distill it down according to the best practices for policy taxonomies, and then validate it as being robust enough to meet the organization's information management needs.

Then we spent time organizing the taxonomy "buckets" into a process arc.  I can't emphasize enough how important this is for the long-term usefulness of a policy taxonomy.  It takes a static set of policy domains and organizes them to tell a story that describes the operation and purpose of the organization.  It is a lot of fun when some participants see the arc as it evolves and exclaim "so that is what our company does!"

Again, keep in mind that these are not noun-based taxonomies that are common in document management and knowledge management systems.  Those taxonomies still have their place and they are still important.

Here is what the diagram above "says"

1. We begin with our company, its structure, history, departments and organizational information.
2. The company is an organization of people, our customers are ultimately people, as are our partners and competitors.  Information about people tend to have the same metadata structures, constraints, reporting guidelines and other policy structures.
3. The people's activities are constrained and informed by policies (remember this is an NPO)
4. The people's activities are then guided by processes and best practices.
5. The end result is the "value proposition" for the organization, whether it is in the public or private sector.  The value of an organization is almost always defined in terms of goods and services.

All processes produce artifacts or documents that then must be managed.  SharePoint is a great platform for ad hoc and team-based information management for current work-in-progress.  After the process has closed and the product or service is complete, it may be a good idea to archive the process artifacts in a records or document management system and provide interoperability between the two systems.