create-a-content-governance-guide

name	create-a-content-governance-guide
category	write
description	Create a content-governance guide for ownership, standards, evidence, review, publishing, localization, accessibility, updates, corrections, retention, and retirement. Use when many people or systems produce content across channels.

create-a-content-governance-guide

Govern the content lifecycle and decision rights, not only tone.

When to use

• Use for websites, knowledge bases, product content, policies, documentation, campaigns, or regulated communications.
• Do not centralize sensitive content access beyond least necessary authority.

Procedure

1. Inventory content types, channels, audiences, languages, owners, systems, risks, and obligations.
2. Define accountable owner, author, evidence owner, specialist reviewer, approver, publisher, translator, and archivist roles.
3. Set standards for purpose, source, claims, plain language, voice, structure, accessibility, privacy, security, legal, and brand.
4. Design briefs, drafting, review, conflict, approval, version, publication, distribution, and emergency processes.
5. Define localization, market adaptation, controlled terminology, source updates, and translation quality.
6. Set review dates, freshness signals, corrections, retractions, redirects, archive, retention, and deletion.
7. Measure findability, task success, accuracy, accessibility, freshness, support deflection, and harmful failure.
8. Pilot representative workflows and govern exceptions with expiry.

Done

• A content-governance guide document records inventory, roles, standards, workflows, localization, accessibility, corrections, retention, and measures
• Owner, evidence, approval, version, market, accessibility, freshness, correction, archive, and exception checks verify operation