After you identify your content stakeholders, collect information from them that will help you analyze how documents are used in your organization. This is an important part of the planning process because the analysis helps you determine:

How document libraries are structured.

Which site templates to use.

How many sites you will need.

Which information management policies to apply to the sites.

Which physical server topology you will need to implement your solution.

The information to collect includes:

Document type, such as equity research note, employee performance review, internal memo, or product specification.

Purpose of each document type, such as “provides customers with recommendations about equities along with supporting data.”

Author of each document type (listed as roles, not individuals, such as “Financial Analyst,” “Human Resources Specialist,” or “Product Manager”).

Format of the document. If the document is transformed from one format to another, record that information.

Users of each document type, such as “customers” or “team members.”

Other roles that apply to the document’s life cycle, such as “technical reviewer” or “copy editor.”

Location of the document, such as “client computer,” “Web server,” or “file server.” Note that this question could have multiple answers, such as when a document is authored on a client computer and then published to a Web server.

How readers view the document, such as from a Web page or a file share.

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