Durga Apoorv Durga

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How to accurately budget for CMS projects

30-May-2011

Tags: Web Content and Experience Management, Building Business Case, Implementation, Marketplace at Large

The software engineering community has spawned many different methods to estimate levels of effort for implementing projects. You could debate the validity or accuracy yielded by these projection methods, but the fact remains that they're widely employed.

A content management implementation is also a software project and you would require some way of estimating your effort (and hence costs). However, in our experience, established methods such as COCOMO and Function Point Analysis generally don't fare well  for packaged software implementation efforts in general -- content management projects in particular.

In our recently released advisory, Alternative Estimation Methods for CMS Projects, we examine the shortcomings of traditional approaches, and explore what would work for a CMS project.

Here's the table of contents for the advisory paper:

  1. Key Takeaways
  2. Introduction
  3. Package Integration Is Still a Software Project
  4. Estimating Content Management Projects
  5. Key Advice
  6. Conclusion

The advisory paper is available to our Web CMS, DAM, and Document Management research subscribers. 

    Excerpt from the CMS Evaluation

    Web Content Management Report looks at... Extended Services in Ektron

    "CMS400.NET has a slew of micro-applications, including polls, surveys, blogs, and threaded discussions with permissioned commenting, among others. The product also comes with its own email subscription/marketing system -- something customers typically procure via a third-party provider. Larger customers may want to procure these services elsewhere, since Ektron's capabilities here aren't as good or as flexible as what you can find elsewhere on the market. On the plus side..."
    (p. 634)

    CMS Vendor Evaluations

    Learn the real strengths and weaknesses of major CMS vendors from around the world, in our Web Content and Experience Management research stream.