In the presentations EID did this month in Asia on the AIIM, ANSI and ISO international standards for trusted systems, time and again the questions from ECM customers were focused in two areas we find the same in the US: 1) how do we start a project to develop an Enterprise-wide content management (ECM) system; and 2) how do we get our employees to embrace ECM technologies?
This week I will describe how I answered the question about How to Start an Enterprise Project and next week I will discuss recognized Change Management Strategies to develop that early “buy-in” by the end-users.
As Jo wrote in Content Wrangler last week, all projects should start with an assessment. You have to understand what you have, where you have it and exactly what problems you want to solve before you can begin to develop a road map for how you will get to your end destination.
Enterprise projects are long and complicated, as is implied by the name, but there is help out there in the form of standards and best practices. I have served in a number of capacities through my years with AIIM, ANSI and ISO, where our standards committees have developed a number of guidelines and best practices to help organizations understand the steps needed in order to develop a successful trustworthy ECM system on an enterprise scale. While there may be some flexibility in the way your project is designed, generally each project includes the following Phases:
Despite AIIM’s recent focus on SharePoint training, it has long been the leader in developing the industry best practices and technical reports in the content management field. The standards committees and subgroups that have been responsible for capturing the best practices and developing guidelines, have done so in a neutral setting so that no one vendor or product has an advantage over another. The committees are staffed by volunteers from vendors, independent industry experts like EID, customers and academics who review and discuss the best practices they have seen work in the electronic content management industry. What ultimately gets published represent only the best thoughts available on what steps to undertake to make a project successful.
Whether you are an international company or in the US, here are a few of the many standards, best practices and technical reports that can help you formulate a plan to start your project:
For more information about your particular project, please contact Robert Blatt at [email protected] or through EID’s main telephone number at +1 (805)529-0600.
