Choosing and implementing a new content management system can be a daunting process. Like any IT project it requires a good deal of up-front planning and it pays to know where to focus your efforts and to remember what the important aspects of the project are.

Here’s a handy guide we’ve put together to help you choose the right CMS for you and to help you avoid some of the common issues.

1.    Content management is not a technical problem; it’s an editorial/content process problem. Focus on the content, editorial and marketing processes for updating the site, then see how the technology is going to make it more efficient.

2.    Keep your business needs front of mind. CMS are not something that you can start using out-of-the-box. They are platforms, or frameworks, for building custom content applications based on an organisation's needs.

 

3.    Start with the minimum you can get away with and then you can move onto solving your more complex requirements. To put it another way, only build what you need. Too many requirements and overly complex website developments will make your website slow to deploy, complex to manage and potentially already out-of-date when it launches.

4.    Keep your website content and the user experience front of mind throughout. Employ user-centered design processes to ensure that you’re delivering the best possible solution and you are ironing out any usability issues or glitches. The money invested in usability testing and improvements typically has very high returns indeed.

 

5.    Concentrate on the information architecture. Deploying a manageable number of templates with layout ‘modules’ that can be used across them will enable effective template management and provide flexibility to achieve good design and content on your site.

 

6.    Keep the team small to ensure decisions are made fast and implementation is achieved quickly and efficiently

 

7.    Bigger is not always better. In the CMS market it can be strongly argued that there is no correlation between price and performance when it comes to content management systems.  Paying more does not automatically deliver a better or more capable product. In fact the more you spend, the more you risk. Therefore to reduce your risk it is better to keep it simple and keep it small.

 

8.    Have a clear distinction between ‘requirements’ and ‘key selection criteria’. Focusing on a short list (up to a dozen) of key selection criteria tied to your business needs rather than a long list of ‘nice to have’ requirements will help you to evaluate and differentiate between products better.

9.    Distinguish what is part of the CMS project and what is part of a wider website or IT project. The wider you cast your net the more complex and costly the project will become. Areas such as search, portals, collaboration tools, discussion groups, mailing lists etc. can easily get bundled into a CMS implementation when they may well be better provided by different technologies and by different work streams. The less focused a technology project is and the more requirements it has, the more likely it is to fail.

10.     Ensure the site owners select the CMS. The technology element should be the smallest aspect of the selection process. The site owners are the actual owners of the business needs and therefore need to run the selection process and evaluation. This approach is proven to deliver the best outcomes.

From searching online we’ve found the other helpful handy tips:
CMS Critic
The Free Library
eZ The Content Management Ecosystem
Convio
Ezine Articles

Or if you’d like to purchase a full report on the subject: http://cmswatch.com/