Conventional wisdom currently holds that between 60% and 65% of all content management projects are failures. How exactly this is defined is open to interpretation, but I think it’s safe to say that fewer than one-third of such projects produce results commensurate with expectations.
What’s scary is that this number hasn’t really changed much in the 20+ years I’ve been tracking it. What’s comforting is that I know why, and what to do about it.
Hard-won experience tells me that many of the organizations in the losers’ bracket focused their attention on the information technologies on the market and not the business pains caused by their less-than-best-practices in information governance. (Or EIM, or ECM, or BPM, or RIM, or e-discovery … doesn’t matter; the point still stands.)
Now, there’s no denying that making a smart technology choice is critical to creating an effective solution – but going after it first is a little like buying painting supplies before you know how big your house is and the weather conditions it needs to withstand.
So don’t be a 60%er. Turn the telescope around and look at things through the lens of the business problems you are trying to solve, not the technologies available to solve them. Only then can you truly determine how to best care for and feed the stuff in your databases, repositories, image stores, and mattress covers – and only then can you truly determine which tool(s) will best meet your infogov needs.
Going to InfoGovCon? Let me know and let’s meet up! (Sep 29 – Oct 1, Hartford CT)