Comments on: Who should #fixwcm?

By: Mr. Huddle: The Easiest Way To Keep Up With Your Communities

Mr. Huddle: The Easiest Way To Keep Up With Your Communities — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 04:54:55 +0000

[...] quite a stir when I predicted the death of taxonomies. Taxonomists worldw… 5 Likes Who should #fixwcm? « Contentprise 4 Likes Blend Interactive – Five Tips to Getting a Good Response to a Content [...]

By: Lokesh Pant

Lokesh Pant — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 07:59:37 +0000

I will not blame product vendor or even the “sales” folks, because that’s part of their job of getting the sales coming in whichever way it comes (right or wrong). As I previously wrote the #fix being -
“Customer should take help from analysts firms or consultants and include their IT staff to identify if the offerings from the vendors are technically correct”.

I agree, most of the time SI pitch-in when the “product” is already finalized. Even in that case, I(as SI) will think of revisiting the requirements and mapping them with the tools/functionality/API/methods the vendor is supposed to or have given/promised to the customer.

For the cases where SI is also responsible for proposing a product and solutioning around the product, then SI should be responsible for the outcome. [Some agreement or may be an aggressive SOW might work here]

By: Shishank

Shishank — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 10:09:54 +0000

Lokesh I think the responsibility lies with actual product vendors and analysts to present the right picture and not just selling pitch. SI’s, in most cases, comes in when the product is already finalized and requirements are in place based on what the vendor projected about the product, without much say

By: Lokesh Pant

Lokesh Pant — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 13:57:56 +0000

Thanks for your valuable comments.
I personally will not blame the “WCM product” unless the vendor promises for something which they don’t offer.
I think SI’s should morally be more responsible and act as a bridge between the vendor and customer, product and outcome, feature and functionality.
@David – Very informative posts.
@Shishank – I agree. Business should be educated and that’s what we are paid for isn’t it?

By: Shishank

Shishank — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 07:02:49 +0000

I think that WCM products in market as mature enough and doesn’t really need a fix. What requires a fix is our approach of understanding the product and using it in context of the business. Also, one important aspect is that business needs to be taught what WCM is; setting strainght guidelines else we always keep patching up WCM in some or the other way

By: David Hobbs

David Hobbs — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:26:30 +0000

I would say that setting the compelling vision is the most important, which is similar to what you’re saying about objective/roadmap. But I also think it’s important that everyone involved in the implementation shares this vision (so it might be more simplified than the full roadmap).

In general, I believe that CMS implementation success has a lot more to do with setting vision and having a good process in place, always product managing the implementation as you go forward. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking on this recently and would love to hear about your thoughts on the approach I’m suggesting — see http://hobbsontech.com/content/web-site-migration-implementation-or-redesign-five-steps and http://hobbsontech.com/content/priorities-successful-web-site-cms-implementation for example.