Twelve Common Pitfalls to Avoid (and Best Practices to Follow) When Embarking on a Web Content and Experience Management Project

Pitfall 7: Picking a CMS package that doesn't play well with other company applications

Best Practice:

Identify the broader IT environment for your Web CMS effort, and anticipate integration needs.

Since your CMS may evolve into the prime public gateway into your legacy systems (CRM, ERP, Marketing Automation, product databases, etc.), the ability to integrate successfully is critical. What languages can you or your consultants use to customize the system? How much of the underlying structure and logic contains open APIs?

One way to help yourself is to follow industry standards. Open database models, separation of data and logic into different tiers, and the adherence to industry standards (like CMIS and JCR) can all help protect your investment and increase your rebounding time if the package you implement suddenly becomes discontinued. Remember, though, that standards "adherence" is a relative term, not a state of being. Find out how your vendor adheres to standards that are important to you, and map that against the goals you are trying to achieve through standardization.

Also, remember that your IT department will have to support this infrastructure, albeit possibly with outside vendor or integrator help. It should run on operating systems and databases that they can maintain (or reasonably learn to maintain).

Pitfall 1: Selecting a Web CMS package before developing solid requirements and a business case. Read the details of Pitfall 1 here.

Pitfall 2: Not getting a clear mandate from the top. Read the details of Pitfall 2 here.

Pitfall 3: Thinking a web content management package will provide a full CMS solution. Read the details of Pitfall 3 here.

Pitfall 4: Not involving internal Web CXM stakeholders from the very beginning. Read the details of Pitfall 4 here.

Pitfall 5: Involving only internal stakeholders. Read the details of Pitfall 5 here.

Pitfall 6: Spending insufficient effort describing and organizing content, and underestimating migration times. Read the details of Pitfall 6 here.

Pitfalls 8-12: Coming soon...