PROJECTS / CASE STUDIES

Case Study 2: Web Publishing/CMS Analysis

Client

Large nonprofit foundation — multi-billion dollar endowment

Situation

A new Web site was in the planning stages for an organization that desired to include multimedia and other expanded "rich" content. A content management system (CMS) was also under consideration in order to lesson the demand upon the IT department for Web maintenance. Tensions were high between the Public Relations department, (responsible for site strategy and content) and the IT department (responsible for development and maintenance of the site) — and were expected to only worsen as stakeholder demands for the Web site steadily increased. Key managers were concerned that core production and content issues would not be adequately addressed with the existing planning.

Project Approach

A Publishing Analysis was recommended to better understand the workflow requirements for the organization, realistic roles for IT and Public Relations personnel, and the appropriateness of a "distributed authoring" CMS model under consideration. The consultant worked closely with both the IT and Public Relations departments to determine realistic ways to improve efficiency and collaboration between them. The organization's Web publishing was analyzed in terms of content, communication strategies, organizational roles, and production processes. Of particular interest was whether a content management system (CMS) would truly address the "content wrangling" and production issues that were currently causing departmental headaches. The overall project approach was to explore issues, suggest options, and discuss implications openly with all team members so they could agree on workable solutions.

Deliverables*

• Publishing Analysis ( 96 kb). Core findings and recommendations, including recommendations for standardized guidelines and roles, editorial and content ownership, ways to increase production efficiencies, and ways that a CMS would — and would not — address existing issues.
• Proposed Web Site Workflows and Roles ( 829 kb). Document that describes and diagrams four workflow scenarios for evaluating, tracking and executing Web requests. Additionally, three levels of requests are outlined and defined to aid in differentiating the type of work to be done, turnaround time required, and players (roles) involved.
• Web Publishing: A Recommended Approach to Consider ( 1.2 M). Document that differentiates the distinct projects be addressed in order to form the Web publishing framework for the organization— in addition to projects required for implementing a new Web site and CMS.
• Many forms were created or outlined in order to facilitate immediate implementation of manual content management strategies, workflows, roles, and tracking. Sample forms -> Category 1 Job Request ( 45 kb), Category 2-3 Job Request ( 41 kb). Job Discovery ( 40), Job Jacket and Schedule ( 53 kb)

Results

Client followed recommendations for both manual and automated content management strategies and reported greatly enhanced productivity and internal harmony between departments. New Web site was implemented with partial CMS support, as per recommendations; vendor responsible for implementation applauded preliminary work completed by PageSolutions on content analysis, roles and workflow, business processes, and setting reasonable expectations.

* Deliverables have been "cleansed" of identifying information to retain anonymity of client.