Pathfinding in the CMS Jungle

NERCOMP 2005

Rich Garcia, MIT

Jay Collier, Dartmouth

Cecilia Marra, MIT

Copyright notice

Copyright Richard Garcia, Jay F. Collier, and Cecilia Marra, 2005. This work is the intellectual property of the authors. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for non-commercial, educational purposes, provided that this copyright statement appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that the copying is by permission of the authors. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written permission from the authors.

The old days

One author writes the page Author uses own personal style preferences Publish it once Update it rarely Wysiwyg editors made it easy

Now

W3C standards Professional appearance Branding Unified look and feel Frequent content editing Life cycles Coordination of multiple authors Etc., etc.

Products to the rescue—maybe

Content Management Systems by the score Different feature sets Hosted or local installation Licensing and maintenance fees Platform requirements

And more Advertised as CMS, but really do different things Blogs, discussion boards, knowledge management

systems

Oops!

Doesn't meet users' needs. Too difficult to use. Too expensive to maintain. No one to call when something goes wrong. Extra features aren't really needed. Incompatible with other software products,

hardware platforms, etc.

The fuzzy front end

“The biggest mistakes in any large system design are usually made on the first day.”

Robert SpinradVice President, Xerox Corp.

Pathfinding

A process called Discovery

What it is

A defined, consistent methodology applied to every project proposal

Thoroughly investigate project proposals before they start Bring project management discipline to the front end of

every project Asks the questions:

Should we be doing this at all? If so, what will it take to make this project a success?

Areas of investigation

Feasibility Cost Cost-benefit Staffing Integration into the IT

environment Alignment with IT

strategic vision

Support/maintenance requirements

Staff impacts Customer needs and

impact Product requirements Roll-out strategy

The Discovery methodology

Find a project sponsor Write a charter Put together a team Find out what customers really need Evaluate possible solutions against customers'

needs Present recommendations to sponsor

Part 2

What Dartmouth Discovered

CMS Discovery 2002

Pre-discovery goalsDiscovery environmentDiscovery methodologyFinal recommendationDiscovery outcomeLessons learned

Pre-discovery goals

Evolution (not revolution) of current processesIncremental, phased implementationMust be sustained by current staffFuture scalability must be considered

Discovery environment

Existing client rosterDefined cost rangeDefined delivery infrastructurePermanent program already in place

Discovery methodology

Based on MIT modelCovered same breadth with less depthClients: survey for requested featuresColleagues: professional best practicesRank features: nominal group techniqueMatch solutions to features

Final recommendation

Matched top client needsFell within cost range for both initial and sustaining costsMaintenance tasks were within program staff skill setBuilt on existing infrastructure and operations

Outcome (1)

Sponsor approved deployment of recommended solutionDeployment occurred with few problemsAll authoring was distributed to content expertsMultiple-stage content approval process was added, as requested

Outcome (2)

Client roster doubled in 18 months with no additional staffSuccess of discovery process has raised awareness of methodology

Lessons learned

Careful definition of scope and sustainability of utmost priorityCommitted sponsor and client roster must buy in to discoveryEvolution of existing workflows makes success more likely

Part 3

What MIT Discovered

How it began

First came demand Next came defining the tool

Q: When is a Knowledgebase not a Knowledgebase? A: When it’s a Content Management System.

Both need flexible tools for workflow, lifecycleWhen search and retrieval matter a little less, and

presentation matters a little more Then came the Discovery Project Team

Gathering information from the MIT community

Web survey

Focus groups

Hands-on demo

CMS Truths -- The Product

No one product will suit all community needs. Standards compliance matters. The product should talk to other MIT systems. Templates must be easy to use and revise. "Vanilla” CMS templates are a no-go. Authors must be able to preview their content. Customers want control of the application. Many open source products have similar capabilities.

CMS Truths -- The Customers

No product can eliminate author personalities, nor can it make content magically appear.

The learning curve must be shallow. ‘Nuff said.

All products require a knowledgeable web site administrator

CMS Truths -- The Process:

A CMS is not a substitute for a business process. A CMS can support a process but can not force compliance. Well-defined business processes offer the most promise for

success. Excessively complex processes will require custom-built

tools. Workflow must be adaptable, or workarounds arise.

Customers need to be able to remove steps/layers of approval as needed.

The ever-changing CMS space

No strong leader in the Higher Ed vertical University Web Developers listserv Educause Web User Group archives CMS web sites and other on-line resources

The rules of elimination Functional Requirements Technical Requirements

Special considerations

Open Source Had to build in order to test Will those technologies be the way of the

future? Will the developer community stay vital?

How do you develop and “sell” an opt-in enterprise offering?

And the winners are:

An open-source product: Lenya An ASP-model proprietary product: Atomz A desktop authoring tool: Contribute

Training Added web server tools and services

Where are we now?

Works in Progress Piloting Contribute and adding

services to Athena Seeking customers for Lenya Follow up on Atomz

Key Learnings

Our conclusions are unique: Cultural environment Computing environment Customer requirements

Methodology is universal

Further Information

MIT's CMS report:web.mit.edu/ist/discovery/content-mgmt/report.html

Dartmouth's CMS report:www.dartmouth.edu/goto/webcmsdiscovery

The Discovery Process:web.mit.edu/ist/discovery

Our addresses

Rich Garcia: rlgarcia@mit.edu Jay Collier: Jay.F.Collier@dartmouth.edu Cecilia Marra: cmarra@mit.edu