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

Pitfall 9: Underestimating integration and other professional service needs

Best Practice:

Anticipate the need for outside help and budget for it.

The famous last words in any Web CMS marketing materials are "out of the box." Even the most prepackaged solutions we evalauted in the product review sections require some level of integration. Behind some of the stories one hears of failed CMS implementations are companies that spent their entire budget on software licensing and maintenance, leaving nothing remaining for the most crucial part: Actually getting the system to work.

If content is central to who you are as a company, then how you manage, organize, and present it will be different from other companies. Figuring out just what needs to be customized can take almost as much effort as the actual integration. The complexity and dynamics of your business rules and processes here will be key determining factors in the extent of integration required.

Also, someone will also need to code workarounds to the inevitable bugs and undocumented product shortcomings (even the best software has both). The key, of course, is to involve enough of your own technical specialists, to ensure that sufficient expertise transfers in-house, so they can make updates and changes to the WCXM ssytem going forward.

You should also seriously consider who will take care of other tasks that have everything to do with unleashing the value of your content, but only tangentially related to implementing a Web CMS package - like outlining a meaningful site information architecture, creating value - added visual presentation schemes, and developing user-centered navigation.

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.

Pitfall 7: Picking a CMS package that doesn't play well with other company applications. Read the details of Pitfall 7 here.

Pitfall 8: Underestimating hardware needs. Read the details of Pitfall 8 here.

Pitfalls 10-12: Coming soon...