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

I think the biggest problem is buyers who don't know what they want a CMS for, and sellers who don't know (or don't care about) what their product *should* be used for and what it does not do.

A CMS will not do your information architecture or business processes for you, and if the people buying the system are not clear on that (and if they are not, why aren't vendors telling them) then there is no way a sensible choice of system can be made.

Even Bob's CMSML list, to my mind, doesn't take the necessary step back and look at what outcomes are wanted, its focus is more on how outcomes are achieved.

For people like me who want something along the lines of a Publication Content Management System (as defined in Anne Rockley's Managing Enterprise Content) with multi-lingual capablitities, it is a laborious process to try to sift through the thousands of products that don't see websites as the be-all and end-all. Some don't even realise that CMS used to mean something other than WCMS and have no idea that you need different capabilities to manage content for delivery to other media (eg auto-generated TOCs).

I'm sure if I wanted to do something specific on a website I would have the same problems.

Vendors want to be all things to all people when they would be far better picking a target and being the best they can be for that purpose.

I also don't think the proliferation of DIYers that then try to get their system into the commercial world are doing the industry any favours. What we need is maturity, what we are getting is quantity.

That said I do agree with a recent thread on the tactic of getting your feet wet with a cheapish system to help nut out your requirements with the expectation that it might have to be ditched (initial requirement therefore is for a good migration path).

We're reasonably clear on our requirements and there's a system I've been looking at for a while that *seems* to be right for what I want. So rather than agonising over whether it will be a perfect fit I will be recommending that we bite the bullet - when anyone who can sign off comes back to the office that is :)

Happy new year!
-Melanie

----- Original Message -----
From: "Austin, Darrel" <[email protected]>
Date: Thursday, January 1, 2004 8:23 am
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 
> sometraining.
> 
> - 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 
> productsout 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
> 
> --
> http://cms-list.org/
> please trim your posts.

                                                                      

--
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please trim your posts.