UX Matters published this book review which I thought our readers might appreciate. Johannes concludes that:”Her mission is fundamentally the improvement of collaboration within organizations through clear structures, processes, and accountabilities. She advocates for a more professional stance on all things digital, leaving behind the exotic aura that they still have in many organizations. Digital should be tightly integrated into an organization’s core—and Welchman demonstrates how to achieve that goal.”
Here’s her review:
In her book Managing Chaos: Digital Governance by Design, Lisa Welchman shows us how to tame the digital beast. Her reality-tested approach and holistic view make for a great read that is worth every minute of your time. The book’s subtitle promises digital governance by design, which will get the attention of curious designers and other digital workers alike. But it will also likely produce some skepticism in her audience. After all, don’t we owe a huge part of our creativity to the boundless freedom and chaos the digital environment provides? But if we can hold back the romantic within us for a moment, we’ll remember various situations in which our energy and creativity were stifled by chaos. Take, for example, what we learn from a conversation with the digital lead of an international company: She has no influence whatsoever on whether the style guide her team worked so hard on will actually be used in the company’s markets. Disconnected teams develop rogue Web sites, ignoring all standards. And nobody has the authority to change that. Chaos, we have to admit, can be a frightening beast, standing between us and our achieving our best work. So, what is Welchman’s strategy for taming that beast? First, she combines ambition with realism. As much as she wants us to recognize and realize the big, strategic possibilities of digital governance, she never forgets the challenges of the daily grind. Welchman brings a decade of experience to her efforts to improve the practice of digital governance in organizations. She is not a theorist speaking to an audience that is unknown to her. She is a seasoned practitioner and is highly familiar with both digital and corporate environments. – See more at:
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