[Sigia-l] "Study: Content Management Tools Fail"

[list]

Peter Merholz wrote:

>In fact, I would argue that the main reason that CM tools fail is not
>because of some inherent problem with content management, but because
>businesses do a poor job of understanding their own requirements.
>  
>
I whole heartedly agree.  I have been dealing with helping organizations 
with CM requirements since 1996, reviewing possible vendors (or 
developers), evaluating options (including rolling our own), and 
implementing a solution (usually rolling our own).  The most important 
step has always been understanding the requirements.

Organizations need to understand what they do well in the CM processes 
and what they need help with.  They also need to understand their 
technical environments, as well as their organizational, political, and 
resource (human and capital resources ) environments.  

>So the vendors sell to the business' poorly understood requirements, and the
>whole endeavor fails.
>
I have few examples with vendors doing much else other than try and sell 
their products.  The product claims are often more than can be delivered 
(with out breaking the warrantee).  I have only once had a vendor state 
their product was not going to be right and pointed to another product 
that was going to be a better fit (hint I called that when ever I had a 
need for CM solutions to pick his brain through the three different 
companies he worked -- now out of the industry).  

I have walked other organizations through the process for requirements 
and selection and they made a decision that matched their needs 
perfectly.  The CM company went under, but the client was able to hire a 
couple of the developers to help them implement and tweak the CM 
application.  This extended their roll out for more than 9 months, but 
they got exactly what they needed and are very happy.  The client 
considered switching to another vendor, but no other CM application met 
their needs as well as the one they chose.  The client knew this because 
they knew their own requirements very well.  They knew how information 
flowed and how they could implement a solution with little disruption to 
the processes that have been in place for more than 20 years and are 
ingrained in the institution.

All the best,
Thomas

www.vanderwal.net