planning process:
goals
audience
competition
content
structure
design
  Source: Information Architecture Tutorial

 
determine your site's content

Give them what they are looking for.

We determined why you are building your site and for whom. The next step will deal with what. You can pretty much touch the images of the site forming right in front of your eyes.

functional building blocks
You will need to gather answers to:

  • What pieces of content does the site need?
  • What sorts of functionality will be required?

After you create a list of your content and functional requirements, reach consensus, you are creating a content inventory as basis for the site structure.

identify and prioritize
start two new lists based on all the previous research (goals, audiences, competition):

  1. type of content elements
    • static
    • dynamic
    • functional
    • transactional
  2. functional requirements for your site.
    Prioritize each requirement.

As you are generating these lists ask yourselves:
Do you have the technology to meet each requirement?
Do you have the time and money to buy or build the functionality?

group and label
time to organize and scale down the massive number of elements by grouping them together. Give everyone an opportunity to participate – no wrong or right answers here. It is a good opportunity to observe different approaches.

...and your site's structure is taking on a clear shape

  
analyze your competition identify your structure