A Content Management System is only as good as the organization implementing it

I recently attended the DocTrain East conference. Writers, managers, localizers, and vendors converged on Lowell, MA for this four day event. At DocTrain, people from all parts of the tech writing world come together to discuss and learn about technologies and methods relevant to their industry. One of the most important lessons I learned is that people play a greater role in a successful Content Management System project than the technology used.

"What Content Management System should we adopt?" is a regular question that many documentation organizations ask. This is a simple question with no simple answer. There are many Content Management System vendors, but more importantly, every organization has different needs and ways of working. It quickly becomes clear that choosing a vendor should be one of the last decisions made in the long process of adopting a system. As one of the presenters said, "it's not a how-to but a who-to". In other words, it's not what system you're using but who is using the system. You can have the best Content Management System but if people are resistant to the process you'll end with up with disaster. At the same time you can give a mediocre system to a dedicated group of people and be very successful.

John Sturman, Senior Consultant, Documentation Strategies