Re: More users = simpler CMS

James Robertson wrote:
> This is one of the articles that we published this month, which
> I thought might of interest to this list:
> 
> * More users = simpler CMS
>   http://www.steptwo.com.au/papers/cmb_moreequalssimpler/index.html
>   When deploying a CMS across the whole organisation, the rule is:
>   the more users, the simpler (and more usable) the system should be.

When there are more users the "pyramid" - with powerusers at the top and 
infrequent non-technical users at the bottom - grows larger and hence 
the CMS must be able to adapt to a wider range of types of users. You 
will always have the "top" of the pyramid, but only large deployments 
will have the "bottom", so to speak. This much I agree with the article.

However, the conclusions are making a lot of assumptions about what 
CMS's can and cannot do, and these are empiric rather than inherent. 
This undoubtedly has to do with what CMS's the author has been exposed 
to, and worked with, and is responsible for this bias. While "wrong" 
(that is, outside of the sphere of CMS's the author has worked with), it 
is understandable.

The need for in-depth knowledge of the CMS that the implementing 
customer team must have can be radically reduced by utilizing the vendor 
itself, or by asking how other similar customers have approached similar 
problems. While many tend to believe they are "unique" or "special", 
that is rarely the case, at least not with regard to the issues raised 
in this article.

The CMS itself can also be created in a way that explicitly deals with 
the issues outlined in the article. I happen to be the architect of one, 
hence my own bias and perspective :-)

It is indeed important that users can start off in an expedient and 
"simple" fashion, and then leverage more and more as the experience and 
needs increase. The single most devastating error that can be done is to 
do an all-at-once implementation that simply does not reach escape 
velocity and hence comes tumbling back to earth making a spectacular 
crash. There are endless stories of traumas relating to such projects, 
both on the CMS and "portal" side of things. But these can be avoided.

Or so I think.

/Rickard