Thanks for your comments. I agree that goal #1 of an ECM implementation (or any technology deployment) must be to understand the desired outcomes and the problems the project has set out to solve. Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to be the case in many ECM projects. I can’t say why exactly, but I suspect that it has something to do with the perception of complexity for content management. I have observed many organizations that fail at ECM because they assume that it shouldn’t be too hard to migrate a few documents from shared drives into a somewhat more structured system. This is certainly true of traditional ECM systems and I would suggest it is largely true of SharePoint as well (despite SharePoint’s user-friendly reputation).

Thanks again for your comment. You’ve got me thinking on this topic and it feels like something that deserves a bit more airtime, so watch this space for a future post about managing complexity in ECM implementations.

Good luck.

G.

P.S. Great blog…I’ve added it to my blogroll

Read your blog-spot with interest. I also read your presentation, and I agree with you that MOSS probably need to be implemented differently that other mainstream ECM systems. My opinion is also when implementing ECM the project group need to focus on value propositions, business processes and the organisation (change management).

My point of view is that before any project start-up there should be: a leverage of expectation, a value proposition (goals) and a business case that is in line with the organisations overall strategy.

And the root to unsuccessful projects is that they often are technology driven with a limited tactical view (this will solve my problem).

All the best

ER