As we talked, I manage to shoe-horn everything into a simplified, non-technical trinity of substance, structure & style. And it seemed to work (or she is a great actress).

Thinking about it afterwards, I reckoned it was worth codifying as I am sure there are lots more people who are just as confused about web governance as my mum.

So here it is. The web governance trinity.

Substance

The substance of web governance comprises everything you need to do in order to manage a website (i.e. activities such as budgeting, setting standards, doing development, etc.) - and - everything you need to allow those to happen (i.e. resources such as people, tools, budget, etc.).

While the granularity of these activities & resources may vary from site to site, the substance remains absolutely constant.

Read more about the activities & resources that comprise web governance

Structure

The activities & resources above are then organised into structures (such as roles & responsibilities, teams, processes, etc.) based on the 'scale' of your site.

Structures may vary - but there are common patterns for sites of a similar scale, no matter what industry they are in.

Explore common patterns of web governance for sites of different scales

Style

The style you choose to enforce governance depends on things such as corporate culture, dispersal of responsibility, executive support, etc.

A light touch approach works well where there is coherence around online objectives. A stricter approach works well where there are many stakeholders and competition for resources.

Learn more about why web governance fails

So, where to start...

There are a lot of balls to juggle, so understanding how everything holds together is crucial. Learn how to start planning a new system of web governance.