Key Points
- Digital planning tends to cluster at two extremes: visionary strategy and detailed planning. The architectural middle is where critical decisions live.
- The missing middle includes system integration concepts, extent of change, conceptual IA, and discipline prioritization.
- The middle is not just within each discipline — it is also the glue between disciplines.
When preparing for big digital changes, the work tends to cluster at two extremes. At one end, there is blue-sky visionary strategy: audience definition, brand aspirations, high-level statements about the desired end state. At the other end, detailed planning: wireframes for specific pages, content entry, template configuration. Both are necessary. But between them sits an entire layer of conceptual, architectural work that rarely gets the attention it needs.
This work is the missing middle. It is the work that translates visionary strategy into something an implementation team can actually execute well — and it is the work most likely to be skipped.
The two extremes
The visionary strategy end is comfortable. Articulating a grand vision, setting broad goals, and nodding to trends — this is work that gets done, and sometimes gets done repeatedly. It is where executives and strategists naturally operate, and it generates energy and excitement.
The detailed end is where implementation vendors live. Wireframes, code, configuration, content migration scripts — tangible, billable, measurable work. Implementation teams are good at this and eager to get started.
The problem is that these two levels do not naturally connect. You cannot go from we need a unified digital experience for our key audiences directly to wireframing specific page templates. There is a layer of decisions in between, and those decisions are often not being made — or are being made implicitly, by default, once an implementation vendor is already engaged.
What’s in the middle?
The missing middle is the conceptual, architectural work that sits between visionary strategy and execution. Some examples of what this work looks like:
How systems will conceptually relate to each other. Not which API to use (that is execution) and not we need a unified content ecosystem (that is visionary strategy). The middle ground is: which system is the source of truth for which content? Will product information flow from the PIM to the web CMS, or will it be maintained separately? Where do assets live? These decisions fundamentally shape everything downstream, but they often do not get made until an implementation vendor is already in place — at which point the vendor's existing capabilities and preferences tend to drive the answer.
The extent of change, and how the unchanged parts will connect. You need to know not just how wide your change will be (see What’s Your Number? Go Wider for Higher Impact), but how the parts outside scope will interface with the parts inside scope. If you are rebuilding your main site but leaving the documentation portal alone, you need a conceptual model for how those properties link. Otherwise you end up with a new site surrounded by disconnected properties.
Conceptual information architecture. Not the detailed sitemap (that is execution) and not content should be easy to find (that is visionary strategy). The middle ground is: what are the main conceptual groupings of content, what are the primary linkages between them, and — critically — what current groupings should be dropped? The willingness to eliminate an existing structure is a decision that almost never gets made at the visionary strategy level and is too late to make during execution.
Which disciplines need the deepest investment. If your content is disorganized but your technology is straightforward, then content strategy needs far more investment than technology planning (see Depth Scales for more on dynamically planning the depth of different features). But the default is to spread effort evenly, or to let the implementation vendor's strengths determine where the focus goes.
| Visionary Strategy | Missing Middle | Detailed Planning | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Business strategy | Business goals | What digital properties and site sections are in and out of scope? | Tracking business metrics |
| UX | Audience | What are key flows and what is our engagement funnel | Wireframes |
| IA | Grand statements like "must be easy to use" | What will be the primary grouping types of content, and what will be removed? | Navigation and taxonomy |
| Tech | Broad needs like replacing a CMS that's being sunsetted | How systems will conceptually communicate | Requirements and specifications |
| Content | Overall needs like content written for a different audience | Will this primarily be a build-each-page-from-legos or a more templated approach? | Detailed content modeling |
It’s also the glue
Even if you defined the middle for each discipline independently, something would still be missing. The missing middle is not just about each discipline’s middle ground in isolation — it is also about the connections across disciplines at this level.
A strategy decision to consolidate site types drives the information architecture model. The IA model constrains the technology integration approach. The technology reality shapes what is feasible for content migration. And the content reality — thousands of PDFs, or five teams who own overlapping content — should be informing the strategy. These cross-discipline connections at the middle level are where the real architectural decisions live. They are also the decisions most likely to fall through the cracks, since each discipline’s team naturally focuses on its own domain.
This is related to what I have written about standards: a standard should not even be defined if you have not figured out a way to implement it (see Standards: Defined and Architected). The same principle applies more broadly. Visionary strategy should not be articulated without at least some architectural thinking about how it will be realized. That architectural thinking is the middle.
Why does the middle get skipped?
The missing middle gets skipped because nobody naturally owns it. Internal stakeholders are comfortable at the visionary strategy level. Implementation vendors want to get into the details — that is where their expertise and billable hours live. The middle is architecturally difficult, politically uncomfortable (it requires decisions that narrow options), and does not have an obvious organizational home.
Furthermore, the middle is where you need to make tough calls that upset people. Deciding that content will live in one system and not another has political implications. Deciding to drop an existing content grouping means someone’s work gets retired. Deciding that one discipline needs deeper investment implies another gets less. These are exactly the decisions that organizations are most inclined to defer — and deferring them means they get made by default during implementation, usually in a way that preserves the status quo.
This is precisely the work that must happen before engaging implementation vendors. Once you are working with an implementation team, these architectural decisions have either been made explicitly or they have been made by default. And decisions made by default are almost always decisions to preserve the status quo, which is precisely what you were trying to change (also see The RFP is Too Late).
Need help defining the middle? David Hobbs Consulting's Implementation Strategy service is designed for exactly this work. See more about our approach to setting a vision that is grounded in key decisions and implementability. Get in touch to discuss.