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

In addition to what you have stated below, we have found that the number 
one reason a CMS implementation fails is because people pick the tool first 
without understanding the business reasons behind a content management 
solution or what they need to be able to do with it. If you don't:

-do an in-depth analysis of your organizational needs
-determine what problems you want the CMS to solve
-determine how your content life cycle could be improved
-determine how to more effectively design your content for creation, 
management, and delivery
-take the time to effectively evaluate your technological options

There is a good chance that your CMS implementation will fail or be much 
more costly then intended.

At 05:09 PM 12/31/2003 -0500, 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
>
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