Re: What/why is the CMS failure rate? (WAS: RE: ask for he lp)

Hi Bill and Darrel.

I too am working late on NY Eve.

I thought this great exchange should be added to the CMS Forum "Failed 
CMS Projects".

See http://cms-forum.org/?q=node/view/8

Happy New Year.

Hauck, William B. wrote:

>Darrel,
>
>To throw my observations in here, these are some reasons that projects fail.
>
>-products sold as something they're not
>	--It's a cms, a database front end, a search engine, a ...
>
>-sales folks using "canned demos"
>	--it's really cool that the product _can_ do what they demonstrate, but _will_ it "out of the box?"  If the product I'm buying doesn't do what you're showing me, don't show it.  And PLEASE don't show it to management.  (Apologies to management.)
>
>-sales/marketing folks not being up-front with what costs what
>	--I've seen products that have many modules that can do many really cool things, but each individual module is another license.  Many times, though, it's not clear until a vendor is selected and a contract is presented.
>
>-people other than the actual end users picking / driving customization of the products.
>	--I know businesses won't survive if end users hand picked everything, but in many cases they have never heard of the chosen product, don't know anything about it, and don't have a say in how it is implemented.  Most implementations are run by IS, or a small, select group from the end users, then forced upon the end users who end up having most of the customizations redone.
>
>-businesses not having a clear goal
>	--"We want a content management system."  Great.  What do you want it to do?  Most departments don't have a clear answer.  Fuzzy Requirements == Failure.
>
>-end users (or whole departments) simply refusing to use the selected tool
>	--believe it or not, whole departments will go outside of IS, purchase their own software and implement it themselves which they're not staffed to do.
>
>-employee turnover
>	--I've heard of projects being completely scrapped after a few key people quit or leave their position.  The new team comes in and wants something _they_ designed/bought.
>
>Good luck.
>
>Happy New Year (Gregorian calendar folks)!
>
>bill
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Austin, Darrel [mailto:[email protected]]
>Sent: Wednesday, December 31, 2003 4:23 PM
>To: cms-list-/[email protected]
>Subject: What/why is the CMS failure rate? (WAS: RE: [cms-list] ask for
>he lp)
>
>
>  
>
>>CMS that encompasses all of these elements - they complain that the
>>tool set is overly complex, needs significant customization, and
>>usually does not deliver as expected - leading to the high rate of
>>CMS failure - forcing the customer to homegrow CMS components on top
>>of the existing 'end-to-end' system.
>>    
>>
>
>Graham triggered some question I'd like to pose:
>
>  1) How high is the actual CMS failure rate?
>
>  2) If it is high, why?
>
>  3) Why are there still so many bad (or incorrectly marketed) 
>     CMS products out there?
>
>I got my hands dirty with CMSes these past two years. I'm certainly not an
>expert, but I haven't been too overly impressed with the CMSes I've had to
>use over the past two years or so...
>
>- Worked with a client using Autonomy. It was sold to the client as a
>CMS/portal when it very clearly wasn't. We did find it a fine search engine
>(though a bit clumsy) and instead had to outsource a hosted CMS product to
>handle the actual CMS
>
>- The hosted product was far from intuitive, but semi-usable after some
>training.
>
>- At my current gig, I (as part of a team) spent several months
>researching/analyzing products and finally chose Web500. While a good
>product, it was sold to us as something it wasn't. In a matter of weeks we
>scrapped it. It was a failed CMS product for us.
>
>- Feeling defeated, suckered, and stupid for buying something that, in
>hindsight, just plain didn't work, I attended a local internet conference a
>few weeks later. On the schedule was a CMS session hosted by two CMS experts
>from a highly reputable State University Business School. I thought I might
>learn something. Turns out that they had a mirror story to mine. They spent
>months researching products, finally hiring a vendor to custom build a
>product only to find that two weeks after launch that the product was awful
>and was in no way going to meet their needs. This brought up comments from
>the audience and there were, again, similiar stories.
>
>While I obviously have a very small amount of exposure to the CMS products
>out there, my exposure has been pretty consistently bad. And it sounds like
>this isn't uncommon based on some recent comments in here.
>
>So, I just thought I'd toss out the open ended 'why?' question to see what
>comes up. Are CMS vendors simply selling their products to the wrong
>clients? Are they not trully 'getting' what clients really need? Are clients
>not trully understanding what they need? Are CMS consultants all scam
>artists? Are the wrong people buying the products? Does everyone get to
>leave early from work on NYE except for me?
>
>-Darrel
>
>  
>
-- 
Bob Doyle, Editor In Chief
CMS Review
http://www.cmsreview.com
77 Huron Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
617-876-5678


--
http://cms-list.org/
please trim your posts.