Why Content Management Projects Fail

This is a business/project management session examining why content management projects fail.  I've been implementing content management systems in some form or another for 20 years, and I see the same patterns over and over.

We'll discuss four common types of failure:

1. Abortive
   The project abandons mid-stream
2. Quantitative
   The project completes, but misses key metrics, such as date or budget
3. ROI
   The project completes and makes its numbers, but doesn't return the value invested
4. Expectations
   The project completes, makes its numbers, and technically makes its ROI, but the users have a lingering unease that they're actually no better off than they were before

From here, we'll discuss over a dozen different scenarios of why content management projects don't quite work, including existential failures (the project should never have existed in the first place) and process failures (the idea was valid, but something went wrong in the execution).  We'll talk about (1) how to see these coming, and (2) what to do about them when you find them.

Some examples:

• Strawman Failure
  The solution solved a false problem; it solved the problem that the project sponsors thought that they had, not the actual problem.
• Molehill Failure
  The solution solved a real problem, but the problem was a molehill not a mountain. Having the greatest solution ever to that particular problem doesn't give enough of an advantage to having having the problem in the first place.
• Adoption Failure
  The solution works, but no one uses it, or doesn't use it to the potential it was intended to be used.
• Organizational Warfare Failure
  The organization couldn't come to an agreement on the problem or the solution.
• Bad Actor Failure
  The project was doomed by actions taken in bad faith by a specific person or group of people.
• Integration/Fragmentation Failure
  The solution failed to combine or bridge systems, and instead just added another system to an already fragmented environment.
• Process Modification Failure
  To succeed, the solution required modifications to business processes which the organization wasn't willing to make.
• The Dogma Failure
  The organization tried to do something on Dogmatic principle, without regard to the practical value.
• Bullseye Failure
  The organization concentrated too narrowly on the specific tasks associated with the project, failing to consider all of the related, cascading tasks and workload around the project.

Thoughout, I'll supplement these with stories from the trenches of almost two decades in content management, and over a decade implementing professionally.  This talk will be based on research I'm completing for my second book.

This will be a broad-based talk, not requiring any experience other than having been involved in content management projects to some extent. To many people, this will identify specific strategies to resolve problems and warning signs that problems are coming. To others, this will simply be confirmation that they're not crazy.

This talk will not be Drupal-specific.  It will be highly relevant to Drupal integrators, project managers, and business development personell, but it will be generic to the field of content management.