Best practices for WCM adoption
Following these best practices won’t necessarily solve all your problems, as each content management project inevitably goes through bumps in the road. Issues relating to vendors, resource constraints and internal politics will continue to pop up, and no amount of best practices will help you avoid them. However, pitfalls relating to issues such as vendor selection, content authoring tool configuration and over-customization can be avoided. Keeping these best practices in mind throughout the implementation process will help minimize those bumps, and lead to a smoother path as you head down the WCM implementation road. See the Chart for Best and Next Practices in WCM Adoption for External Sites.
A sampling of WCM providers
Alfresco
Alterian
Clickability
CrownPeak
Day Software
Ektron
EMC
FatWire
IBM
Interwoven, now part of Autonomy
Microsoft
Open Text
Oracle
PaperThin
SDL Tridion
Sitecore
Vignette
Questions to Ask When Considering WCM Customizations
- Will the customization have a negative effect on the maintenance and operation of the WCM system
- Will the customization have a negative effect on the WCM upgrade path
- Will the customization positively affect productivity and usability for internal content contributors
- Will the customization enable a differentiating customer experience or competitive advantage
- Can the customization be used by multiple businesses/sites
- Does the WCM vendor publicly support this type of customization
- What is the return on investment for the customization?