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White Paper
Best Practice
Implementation of Content
Management Systems
By Matthew Goode
Director of Web Content Management
AlterianWhite Paper
Best Practice Implementation of Content Management Systems
Table of Contents
Page 1 Usability - a key to avoiding content management project failure
Page 1 Your content
Page 2 Understand your content management goals
Page 2 Resourcing - inside or out?
Page 2 Technical requirements
Page 3 Making the investment pay off
Page 4 About AlterianWhite Paper
Best Practice Implementation of Content Management Systems
Usability - a key to avoiding content through pre-prescribed editing and permissions-based processesmanagement project failure before publishing?The demand for content management systems is undisputed asbusinesses wrestle with the exponential growth of content and If the answer to these and other similar scenarios is no, then youdata flowing in and out of PCs, databases and other storage may well have a problem. Ideally content management systemsdevices. need to be so intuitive and easy to use that staff can get on andload web pages even before receiving official training. As a realSenior executives talk about utilizing corporate data more life example of this, in a recent implementation of Alterian CMSeffectively to drive up productivity. As part of this, swift and easy by our partner Atkins at Havant Borough Council, staff had usedaccess to content is essential in nearly every aspect of business the system to add 500 pages to the borough's website in justtoday from internal communications to online sales, partner and three weeks between the system going in and trainers arriving tosupply chain management. show staff how to use it. This sort of feedback bodes very wellfrom a user acceptance point of view.But recent VNU Business Publications/Oracle business researchinto the Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Assuming then that the content management system beingimplementations at some 200 large enterprises in the UK reveals selected scores highly for usability and apparent simplicity, whatplenty of dangers and pitfalls. Put frankly, many ECM is the next stage?implementations are failing according to the survey's findings.Why then is it so difficult to manage larger content management Your contentprojects? One key reason, in Alterian's view, is that many ECM What sort of content do you have today and where are yousystems are over-complex and engineered to incorporate every trying to go with the content in the near future?single piece of functionality that a firm might (or might not) It sounds a simple question but it raises a lot of questions.need. According to Paul Champion, principal consultant at the Cable &Wireless Web Technology Group, companies embarking onIn the quest to create the 'ultimate ECM system', some software content management projects need to ask some specificvendors have lost sight of the need for usability. So it is no questions:surprise that the chief obstacle to ECM success, as highlightedby the research paper, is resistance by would-be users. Fifty . What types of media assets and how many of them do youseven per cent of public sector organizations questioned, saw have?this as the key obstacle to implementation success. . How many websites do you need to maintain?. Are your workflow and authoring requirements for creating newSo, in an article looking at best practice in content management content complex?system implementation one of the key areas of consideration . How do you archive old content? When do you delete it?must be selection of a system built for usability and simplicity. If . How many mega bytes or tera bytes of data are you holding?you sit the press officer in front of the system, will he be able to What devices hold this data?work out quickly how to load his press releases onto the news . What gaps in content do you have? When are you aiming to fillsection of the new website? Or will the non-IT orientated expert these gaps?further down the corridor with some great insights into theimpact of a new piece of legislation, which will be of interest to a While a new content management system is often a trigger for anumber of your key customers, be able to post an article on the major overhaul of corporate content, the costs of re-building andsubject onto the corporate extranet within minutes, while going updating this content i... [download for more]
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