Our Methodology
Based on our experience, the "build it and they will come" approach for online communities rarely works. And if it does, any success is often short-lived.
The most successful, sustainable online communities are created for a specific purpose, are designed around users' needs and are proactively managed.
Using Ramius' Online Collaboration Methodology (OCM), our team will help you to identify the elements and activities that drive adoption and community success.
Developed exclusively by Ramius, the OCM is a structured framework to plan, design, implement and manage online communities. This approach to community building is founded on years of experience and industry best practices.
Using the OCM to Build Online Community
Beginning with Strategy, Ramius' Professional Services team uses the OCM to guide clients through six core stages in the development lifecycle of an online community:
Strategy — Initial face-to-face consultations to outline the purpose, scope and approach for your community, aligned to your organization's strategic objectives.
Blueprint — A series of collaborative sessions to define business requirements, conceptual design, key measures of success and plan user adoption.
Design — Joint design sessions and rapid prototyping are conducted to define interface layout and customizations, user roles and permissions, etc.
Build — Our team builds and configures the community, uploads seed content and assists with user acceptance tests to resolve any identified issues.
Implement — We work with you to promote the community, outline launch activities to drive user adoption and provide community training.
Support — We offer day-to-day operational management including technical and customer support, community reporting and maintenance. Other support services available include strategy advice, ROI analysis, adoption and facilitation / moderation techniques.
Manage — Throughout the entire engagement, Ramius provides a full complement of project management services to deliver your project on time and on budget.
The Ramius OCM Offers You:
- A collaborative approach to plan, design and implement the online community
- A strategy for growing adoption among the target user base that translates into clear roles and responsibilities for your organization, community participants and our services team
- Guidance on building a communication plan to gain internal and external awareness and acceptance
- A compelling approach to recognize and report Return on Investment (ROI) for the community based on user experience and success while being meaningfully linked to corporate objectives
- An approach that deploys an online solution to users quickly and that minimizes implementation risk
- Participation of target community members through a user Steering Committee or Advisory Council in the design and implementation process
- The potential for ongoing operational and business strategy support to evolve and grow your online community