Check One. Check Two...

It is often said that the first stage in communication is to establish some kind of common ground for understanding i.e. base the communication on known ideas and concepts. This might be the most appropriate approach for both sound checking a new blog channel or health checking a new client.

Another alternative is to ask questions that include some assumptions and thoughts that trigger a reaction. When I first meet a new client I naturally try to understand the client’s situation, challenges and level of maturity. If the meeting concern Enterprise Content Management (ECM) I often apply questions like the following to initiate a discussion:

• What is ECM for you and how does your initiatives support your business and IT strategy?
• What are your short and long-term goals for ECM and how do you measure progress?
• What are your primary stakeholders and users experience of ECM?
• How does your content portfolio motivate your current ECM investments?
• In what way does your development and production processes support collaboration, compliance and reuse of content assets?
• Do you have a reference model guiding the evolution of ECM services and architecture?
• Do you employ a shared service model for ECM that is aligned with your business, information and technology governance models?

The above questions include some perspectives and notions important for an enterprise view of content management. Questions like these can be used as a quick way to understand a clients way of approaching ECM and position it against an alternatively and possibly more mature approach.

Upcoming postings will discuss different ideas and concepts related to a company’s ECM strategy.