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Jarrod Gingras

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Identifying the Right Content Management Stakeholders

7-Dec-2010

Tags: Web Content and Experience Management, Selecting Technology

When it comes to selecting a web content management system, the most "important" stakeholders are not the people at the top of your org charts or the ones with the biggest checkbooks. Let's face it: in most enterprises, the Director of IT or the VP of Marketing will likely never enter a piece of content into the CMS.

Often the most influential stakeholder is the person who holds the most power within the enterprise. And most times this directly correlates to the person responsible for the budget. I have seen first-hand stakeholder votes effectively ending in a 5 to 1 tie where the person in the minority holds the purse strings. 

In fact, it's very common for product selection stakeholder teams to be comprised solely of high-level management folks, none of whom will ever actually use the system.

A project's ultimate success is going to be determined by whether or not content managers and web marketing specialists can effectively use the CMS to do their jobs. When assembling your team of stakeholders who will be making any selection decision, make sure you include the folks at the lower ends of the org charts who will actually be using the system, creating an environment where their voices are heard.

To be sure, not all stakeholders are created equal, and thus they need to be managed differently.  Still, the best stakeholder teams are those with a representative blend of management and system users.