Implementing a web content management system can be a long and painful process. By the time you send an RFP, review vendors, make a selection, refine requirements and specs, configure the tool, develop custom functionality and, well, everything else, you’re done. You’re really finished! When you hear “WCM” in the hallways you flinch. The last thing you want to do is “operate” the damn thing.

But who knows more about how the system works, where the ghosts are, who has the best grease to get the wheels turning? Face it; people will turn to you.

The last thing you want to do is just start operating. Unless you want to be the eternal go-to person for all things WCM you have to have a plan for day-to-day operations. Creating an operations plan can take weeks, maybe months of work but it will save you countless headaches (and not a few gray hairs.)

Your operations plan will boil down to three key components:

Services
Staffing
Setting Expectations

The services component is like it sounds: what value add will you provide to your WCM community (business and IT). That service set is birthed from clearly defining the processes around your web content management implementation. These processes will likely include the how you manage content (author, edit, review, approve, publish); how you maintain, modify and upgrade the WCM system; and processes around users, groups and security.
There may be other processes specific to your environment like translation or workflow to print.

Staffing is people. Who, besides you, will do what needs to be done? What business roles will they play? Who will these people report to? What skills do they have or need? How many are needed today and in the next 12-24 months?

Setting expectations is crucial to your success. Communication about your operations plan, at all its stages, will set the stage for how things will play out down the road. Buy in from all levels will work in your favor—from worker bees to executive management.

The way to establish your “cube cred” is to execute the operations plan. For example, when someone requests a new authoring template you fire off the processes to deliver that service:

Request Intake/Triage Process
Authoring Template Creation/Modification Process
New Functionality Training Process
Operational Reporting Process

It has be a simple formula to be successful. If your operations are bureaucratic, form laden and sluggish then WCM stinks, or at least it will acquire that odor in a short time.

Create enough process, provide enough service, staff enough people and provide enough reporting so that your operations are “enough” for your business. Most WCM users do not work where content is the core of the business. They’re bankers or lawyers or scholars or doctors or manufacturers. So, you’ll want lightweight, agile operations so the rest if the business doesn’t get distracted by the everyday operations of WCM.

Establishing a strong operations function for web content management makes the post-implementation job easier and quickly demonstrates the business value of this significant investment.

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