This workshop is a detailed introduction to what taxonomies are (and are not), why they are useful, and covers everything needed to develop a successful one, from standards, planning and design, populating with concepts, to business implementation, governance, and maintenance.

Following a thorough introduction to taxonomies, their types, and how they relate to other controlled vocabularies, Hedden focuses on methods and best practices for designing and building taxonomies, whether for website/marketing content, technical content, or internal enterprise content. These methods include stakeholder interviews, content analysis, text extraction, and selective use of generative AI in concept research. Best practices include following standards for hierarchical relationships, using suitable labels for concepts, and using the most suitable taxonomy structures. The workshop includes interactive exercises of hierarchical relationship and alternative label creation.

The workshop is suitable for a wide audience, including those interested in getting into taxonomy work, as well as those currently managing taxonomy projects or collaborating with a taxonomist or taxonomy consultant.

Enterprise taxonomies are, by their nature, cross-organisational, but they still need a home base within an organisation. This workshop provides a solid grounding in different types of ownership models, including centralised and federated structures, governance committees, and hybrid approaches that balance authority with flexibility.

Drawing on real-world implementations across large public and nonprofit institutions, the workshop deep dives into how different ownership models influence priorities, funding, and long-term sustainability. It examines how the most common places for a taxonomy function to end up—for example IT, knowledge management, or communications—can enable or constrain successful governance efforts, along with the pros and cons of different approaches.

Participants will leave with frameworks and guiding questions to help them clarify and fit responsibility in their own organisations, enabling them to collaborate with confidence across different teams and with other digital and data governance structures.

The workshop also gives practical advice on establishing cross-functional governance structures that ensure continuity beyond individuals, teams, or tools and also covers ways to mitigate common pitfalls, including department reorganisation, staff turnover, and budget prioritisation.