For anyone who has undertaken any form of home remodel or loves to watch television shows featuring them, the general phases of a home renovation are familiar: visualizing the target state of the remodeled home, carrying out structural work, demolition, rebuilding and framing, inspections and approvals, and wrapping up any finishing touches before pivoting to a more manageable level of ongoing maintenance. These same phases of ideation, development, and implementation lend themselves well to carrying out a “remodel” of an organization’s semantic infrastructure — except at a much faster rate.

Consider the areas in your organization where taxonomies are represented: product lists, intranet drop-down menus, asset tags, navigation menus, and more. Over time, these areas become outdated and less functional. Pressures to embrace AI-first solutions and accelerated workflows compound this issue further. Since taxonomies provide structured context that AI models can effectively digest, prioritizing an up-to-date taxonomy to capture the preferred labels, alternative labels, definitions, and scope notes that represent organizational specificity is crucial. As Emily Crockett explains in How to Ensure Your Content is AI Ready, “Taxonomy and metadata models provide the foundational structure needed to categorize unstructured content and provide meaningful context.” What if that foundation is starting to crumble? In this blog, we’ll explore the different phases of a home remodel as a point of comparison for approaching a “taxonomy remodel” to suit your use cases.

Taxonomy Remodel: Working with a Contractor 

Apart from die-hard DIYers, most people feel more comfortable navigating a remodel with the help of a professional; the same goes for taxonomy design. In this stage, the taxonomy “contractor” facilitates essential information-gathering sessions that dictate the scope, complexity, duration, budget, necessary skills required, and desired impact of the project. 

The complexity and effort of a remodel depends, in part, on the degree to which existing systems can support the client’s vision. Any changes to the taxonomy, the consuming systems, or the procurement of a taxonomy management tool all incur additional levels of effort and require specific skills to implement the desired changes. Just as how home remodels may require plumbers, electricians, tiling experts, and more, taxonomy remodels may demand taxonomists, content engineers, data engineers, and others. Depending on the state of the semantic models in question, one may wonder whether existing semantic structures can be remodeled, or if they should be demolished and rebuilt from scratch. A taxonomy “contractor” can help determine the best approach. 

Taxonomy Remodel: Foundations and Structural Work 

Think about a home that needs foundation work, complete with cracked walls and uneven floors. If you built a second story on top of such a house, your efforts will be doomed. Similarly, any taxonomy remodel needs to first address any structural issues. Neglecting to do so results in taxonomies that cannot scale over time, are difficult to integrate with other models, fail to cover essential areas of the business, neglect use cases, or provide an unreliable source of truth for consuming AI solutions. 

This stage of a taxonomy remodel ensures a strong semantic foundation by identifying the most essential, “load-bearing” pillars of your model. Making sure your taxonomy provides a schema based on standards and best practices ensures that it can be built upon or integrated into other systems, ready for any future “additions” as you scale your model. 

Taxonomy Remodel: Demolition 

Any serious home remodeling project entails demolition: taking out cabinets, tearing up flooring, knocking out countertops, and anything else demanding a sledgehammer and eye protection. While demolition looks less exciting in a taxonomy remodel, the principles are similar; you may first have to “strip things down to the studs” and remove some outdated elements before introducing anything new. 

The demolition phase should exercise restraint; there’s no need to destroy everything when basic elements still work. Think of older homes with valuable elements — stained glass windows, hardwood floors, elaborate stone fireplaces, and so on — that could be preserved rather than swapped for a mass-produced replacement. The same logic applies to existing vocabularies; there may be effective organizational semantic context that deserves preservation.

Taxonomy Remodel: Rebuilding and Framing 

Post-demolition, a home remodel involves some rebuilding and framing. For the purpose of our overview of a taxonomy remodel, consider this the implementation phase. This is often the point at which system limitations present a hurdle for a taxonomy remodel that has to work with existing tooling rather than expensive tool upgrades. This phase may entail updating filters in an intranet tool, deploying updated tags for content findability, fixing navigation menus, and more. This can often be the most resource-intensive, time-consuming phase, and entails working closely with system owners so that any dependencies between systems can be addressed. 

Taxonomy Remodel: Inspections and Approvals 

In any home remodel, the designers must get approval from professional inspectors and the homeowners themselves, accompanied by an inspection checklist to ensure compliance with building codes and safety standards. A taxonomy remodel echoes this: the client needs to approve the changes, and there may be compliance considerations to account for if the taxonomy classifies sensitive data or represents risk. In this phase, inspections and approvals may be carried out in the form of validation activities, where users are brought in to engage with the taxonomy to surface any problems or ensure adherence to the taxonomy’s use cases. 

Taxonomy Remodel: Finishing Touches and Ongoing Maintenance 

A home remodeling project’s final phase entails finishing touches; kitchen backsplashes and faucets are installed, walls are repainted, and accessories, art, and furniture are added back in, helping make a house feel like a home again. In a taxonomy remodel, this would be the point at which users can “move back in” to the systems with the updated taxonomies, and get back to their day-to-day tasks. However, even though the taxonomy is “remodeled,” it still requires ongoing attention. Any home still needs its gutters cleaned, the shower tiles re-sealed, and the HVAC serviced.

For a taxonomy, this ongoing maintenance is governance: the sum of the policies, procedures, documentation, roles, responsibilities, and everything else that goes into ensuring that semantic models continue to meet the needs of the end users and align with the organization’s prioritized use cases. Taxonomies must be treated as dynamic models that keep up with the evolutions of a thriving business, so governance is needed to respond to these changes. 

Taxonomy Remodel: Embracing Your Remodeler Reputation 

As you move into the ongoing maintenance phase of your taxonomy remodel, it’s time to capture success stories and cement your reputation as a fixer-upper. After all, you may not only want to see your home improved, but the whole neighborhood, too. By tracking and measuring the tangible, observable improvements from your taxonomy remodel, you can better demonstrate the value of your remodel despite the time and resources it requires. As you advocate for the value of updated, well-maintained taxonomies for your team, other parts of the organization may develop a heightened interest in and appreciation for taxonomies, and help you make the case for more semantic remodeling projects. 

Conclusion 

Any taxonomy remodel — be that a light update or a heavy overhaul — can unlock additional business value. Investing in “remodeling” semantic models that keep up with your organization’s needs can support improved traceability for AI-powered search summary solutions, aligning terminology across business areas, improving the functionality of existing systems, or enabling custom content recommendations based on user profiles. Furthermore, starting with a more modest taxonomy remodel by no means prevents you from pursuing a more complicated and expansive project as you demonstrate the value of iterative improvements. 

Are you an aspiring taxonomy DIYer looking for experienced taxonomy designers to help set you up for a well-scoped and impactful taxonomy remodel? Contact our experts at info@enterprise-knowledge.com, and we can work with you to develop a fully tailored plan that sets you and your organization up for success.