Managing Content and Knowledge

KEY FINDINGS

• Partners reported improvements in a large number of functions that are considered important characteristics and outcomes of a successful CMS.
• The business case for the CMS investment is often strategic, mission-oriented, and positioned as a cost of doing business, not as an investment requiring a clearly measured ROI.
• The majority of the partners offset their initial request for funding on the basis of cost reduction and productivity improvement, even though they had a more strategic rationale for the system.
• Early-adopter partners, currently in Phase 4, were twice as likely to focus on standardization of technology for managing content as a primary objective than are partners and sponsors currently in phases 1 through 3.
• Partners report significant improvement in a variety of processes as a result of content management systems. However, one of their major areas of dissatisfaction is their struggle to deliver personalized content to their users.
• Conducting a content audit during the planning and design phase was strongly correlated with every category of improved performance in content management: process improvement, service levels, cost savings, quality of content, and customer satisfaction.
• Taxonomies and classification systems reflect the way users work and are primarily developed by the organization, not by automated methods.
• The support roles required for a CMS varied somewhat across organizations, but three common elements were found in all partner organizations:
  • 1) a steering committee
  • 2) a core group that guided the CMS and created templates, common frameworks, and guiding principles
  • 3) the content managers residing in the agencies or business units where content and knowledge is created and used and who have responsibility for content relevancy and accuracy.
• Organizations provide significant support resources in order to design content management systems and customize information technology applications.
• There is no single technology solution to content management.
• When designing a content management system, best-practice organizations keep the user in the center of the design. Then they design the processes around the user and add technology as an enabler to the ideal content management system picture.

• Company A
• General Electric Company
• The MITRE Corporation
• Schlumberger Ltd.
• Washington State Library