I'm a long-time Internet consultant and producer, so this issue is dear and beloved to me.
The notion that a company would go to all the trouble of developing an Internet publishing platform, but not have a clear development process going forward is both absurd and sadly, quite common. There is a feeling--especially among non-technical senior management and marketing teams--that a CMS is some sort of Veg-O-Matic whirlygig that you, well, sort of stuff your unfiltered desires into, and *presto* out comes web pages, precisely as the author imagined them. Free advice: get way out in front of this issue. You must have a content development process clearly supported and enforced within your company which: A. Keeps all content within necessary technical standards B. Respects the need for an orderly development and launch process C. Respects the limits of technical resources D. Gives non-engineers clear, understandable tools to fulfill their needs E. Imposes as little as possible on non-technical processes My free advice is: 1. Get a simple 4 or 5 step production process outlined and in place. (1. Goals and requirements 2. Design/development 3. Approvals and testing 4. Launch) There are a lot of books that outline processes like these. Just to grab two off my bookshelf, try "Secrets of Sucessful Websites," by David Siegel, and "Mapping Work Processes," by Dianne Galloway. 2. I would pay particular attention to the launch process, which can be very frustrating for both engineers and clients alike. If the process is well designed there will be fewer problems in the work product to fix, and lay people will understand the process more clearly. 3. You cannot succeed without educating everyone who will be affected by the system (often called "stakeholders," because they will drive a stake through your heart if they don't get what they want) This education means creating clear, simple (and hopefully cheerful and funny) education materials and training sessions. And you *will not* succeed unless the top levels of management among stakeholders understand your workflow process, agree with it, and are willing to help you enforce the rules of the road. 4. It helps to create two or three classes of users---basic users, editors, and analysts, for example. Basic users would receive enough training to develop simple content on the site, and they would route their work to editors who would approve it. The editors would know more about how to get content in and out of "staging" areas where work is reviewed while in production. Analysts help at the start of big projects, getting the project designed, or shepherding large or very important projects through the process. They might also include engineers from an IT group who can define new software requirements. A lot of this depends on how your new CMS platform works. I do this kind of process implementation work for a living, so if you're interested more in this, please feel free to contact me directly. I'm a former SVP of a Fortune 500 company, and I'm happy to help. If you're looking for a consulting firm to partner in the development of process, training, etc, my own firm is small, effective and compared to Big 8 firms, less expensive. Good luck, pal. Rohn Jay Miller 1801 Dupont Avenue South Minneapolis, MN 55403 (612) 374-4223 [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- http://cms-list.org/ trim your replies for good karma.
