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Contented Management

Contented Management

Theatrical ways to improve project performance

I wish I could remember who wrote that in tragic theatre events start quickly but slow down as they draw to their inevitable conclusion, while in comedy the action start slowly then build up pace. There are definitely parallels with projects.

It’s tragic when you have one of those projects which seemed like a great idea at the time, but the longer the it goes on, the less enthused people become and everyone despairs of achieving success. Managing these is not a cathartic experience: it’s a time to pity the stakeholders and fear for the project benefits.

On the other hand there are laughable projects where you took so long to define requirements that your implementation and testing are squeezed into an impossibly short period. These would be funnier if wasn’t for the fact that as a stakeholder, you’re the one being mocked.

So how do you avoid plunging into despair or feeling ridiculous? Here are three theatrical tips:

1. Get adequate direction
Your governance structures are there for a reason. Use them. If you think the project is going off track, then engage with the project board and escalate issues for them to make a decision on. Stick to the script and resist the temptation to ad lib.

2. Engage with the whole audience
If only some of your stakeholders know what’s going on, your project will be in big trouble. Project reporting needs to be broadcast, not sent to individuals. Set up a project repository where anyone can read reports and documentation, ideally with RSS feeds, and let any stakeholder subscribe. That way everyone can engage with the project and show appreciation, or displeasure.

3. Use actions, not just words
The performance of your project won’t be measured by how much you talked it up. Take on the role assigned to you, step up to the front of the stage and perform as best you can.

Finally, remember that acting and project management are both about empathising with people’s emotions without succumbing to them yourself. If your project’s going badly, you should be able to understand why your stakeholders are upset without getting upset yourself.

Philippe Parker on 27 August 2009

Contented Management

What is enterprise web content management?

I find it hard to believe that there are still CMS vendors telling us that their software manages “enterprise web content”. Does “enterprise” mean just a more expensive way for large organisations to manage web content? Enterprise web content management is missing the point.

Firstly, if you think your organisation’s web presence is only the content generated in your organisation from your processes, you’ve completely misunderstood what the web is about. Your visitors aren’t just going to your site; they’re visiting sites all over the web. If you think they only want your “enterprise” content you’ve buried your head in the sand.

Secondly, if your website has a dedicated editorial team with a content strategy and proper style guides – and it should – they may well be resistant to the idea that anyone can be a web author as long as they use enterprise content management tools and processes.

The website is rarely just an end point or simple publishing channel for the documents your organisation creates. It’s market-driven. It’s meant to provide the information that your audience needs. Whether the website is designed to generate revenue (sell products) or to save money (stop people using more expensive channels like call centres), it needs to be managed so that your visitors can achieve their goals as simply as possible.

It’s because the creation of web content often sits outside enterprise processes that dedicated web content management software exists and stands alone from ECM. A good WCM will simply focus on making it as easy as possible to manage content created solely for publishing to the web, to be read on the web, by a specific audience.

There are of course many organisations who need to relate their website more closely to the rest of their activities. But what’s required isn’t just a piece of software that tacks “web” as a status on the end of a long workflow. You need a process that allows the website to request information from the rest of the organisation so you can deliver your web strategy.

If you view your website as a place where you can publish the “stuff” that your organisation produces, you’ll end up with enterprise web content management, and it will be bad for everyone involved. If you want a good website, make sure it’s a driver in your organisation and not a passenger.

Philippe Parker on 25 August 2009

Contented Management

Why do projects cost so much?

Why do Enterprise Content Management systems cost about five times as much as their top-tier web content management equivalents? Do they offer five times as much functionality? Are they five times less likely to fail? Are they significantly more usable? Generally, not.

But the operational savings that can be achieved with ECM are significantly greater than those typically made by rolling out WCM: there are time savings in information retrieval, cost savings in storage and reduced risk of compliance failure. You would expect these savings to be worth a great deal to most large organisations. Consequently, vendors can sell licences and services at a far higher cost than WCM.

Greater web content management costs can be justified in environments where devolved authorship, strong version control and compliance with web publishing standards are all required. This means that vendors can sell product licences at £200,000 knowing that what they offer can’t be achieved simply by installing WordPress. Commercial open source follows the same approach, but with pricing focussed on support and services.

It’s basic economics, but it’s worth recalling when you feel the costs of your implementation are running out of control. Products and services cost so much because clients tell suppliers that’s what they’re worth. It’s not up to your supplier to calculate your ROI; it’s up to the person paying the bill to do that.

The buyer sets a budget based on the benefits the project will bring, or the cost of not doing the project. Suppliers try to provide a solution that will bring about the benefits within the budget constraints. Together, they set up governance to ensure that the project doesn’t overrun or overspend, so that the business case remains viable.

The goal is not to deliver your project as cheaply as possible. It is to deliver the project in line with the specified business case. If you can save money then great, but if you’ve achieved your objectives, don’t worry that you might have been able to do it cheaper. Just bask in the contentment of having completed a successful project, an achievement that eludes so many.

See also Peter Sejersen’s article on whether you should reveal your budget when inviting tenders.

Philippe Parker on 20 August 2009

Contented Management

The future of content management

Julian Wraith has started a discussion about the future of content management. There are a variety of responses to this linked to from the comments section, each with their own focus, but I recommend reading Laurence Hart for a longer-term view.

My own, brief take is that content management has to face a number of challenging questions over the next couple of years.

Will content need to be managed?
Content management currently focuses on providing tools for groups to create, review and retrieve content so that an approved version of that content can be made available to predefined audiences. User-generated content and the broadcast models of social networking challenge that focus.

  1. Anyone can view content: most tweets go to everyone rather than direct to individuals.
  2. Anyone can contribute content in a UGC world.
  3. Distinguishing what’s your organisation’s content and what’s individual is becoming increasingly fraught; just take a look at any blogger’s site for disclaimers even though they’re blogging about their company’s services.

Will content need context?
Even in the least structured repositories (wikis, flickr, twitter) content is still tagged so that it can be retrieved. But the onus is on the user to find the right tag and on a search application to enable this. This is quite different from a CMS, where the software provides contextual models like folders and related documents to guide the user through an information architecture. As search interfaces and technology improves, there will be less need to provide those contextual models. I have my doubts that semantic mark-up will help people create more relevant content, but I do think that improvements to search will mean that content will be “find-able” and “relate-able” anywhere, even if it isn’t in the right taxonomical folder.

Will content need to be deleted?
As volumes of content continues to increase and contextualisation decreases, finding relevant content amid all the dross will become harder. I think that this will be an even bigger business driver than cost of storage for deleting content that’s irrelevant. But because distinguishing “approved” and strategic content will be harder, it will also be hard to identify which content is dross and what might be useful. Socially-driven records management is bound to take a stab at this problem, but whichever content management tool can help people to get rid of useless content is going to be a winner in the long term.

Philippe Parker on 6 August 2009