The Metatorial CMS Planner™ (Version 1.0)
A Complete Sample Analysis with Planning Templates
Sorry, the planner is no longer available for online purchase.
Is the Planner for You?
If you have found the information in the CM Bible useful and your task is to pull together a content
management system, the planner will be of interest to you. The planner works through a complete analysis
for a fictitious company called TimeBandits (They help you steal back your precious time!). The
TimeBandits example will help you work through your own content and system analysis.
The CMS Metatorial Planner includes:
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A Complete Sample Analysis takes TimeBandits through a complete planning process. The
analysis follows the "Plan" sections of the CM Bible and ties into the background information in the
book.
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Analysis Worksheets in Microsoft Word format that you can use for your own
planning.
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A Report Template that helps you gather your planning worksheets into a full design
document that can be used as one of the "blueprints" for your CMS implementation.
The planner was developed by Bob Boiko of Metatorial Services Inc. and Rita Warren of ZiaContent. The
creators of this planner have been working together since 1995 charting the world of content management.
In the process, we developed a methodology for gathering the critical pieces of information that are
needed to successfully implement a content management system (CMS).
Planner LicensingThe planner is sold under these licensing arrangements:
- You are free to use the planner as you like within your own organization.
- You may not redistribute the planner to anyone outside your organization without the written consent
of Metatorial Services Inc.
- You may not create your own planner from the files we provide without the written consent of
Metatorial Services Inc.
- You may not use the planner to provide commercial services to any third party without the written
consent of Metatorial Services Inc.
If you want to make use of the planner for any purpose other than planning your own CMS, let us know
and we will work out a special agreement with you.
Introduction from the Planner
Here is an excerpt from the planner introduction to help you decide if the planner is for you.
What is your role in this process?
If you find the topic of content management particularly interesting—and relevant enough to
your job that you took the step of obtaining this planner—it’s a pretty sure bet you have some
responsibility for a content management project. Your task is likely to pull together a process and a
team to design and implement a content management system. For the purposes of this planner, we will call
you and your team the “CMS Project Team” because your end goal at this point is to successfully complete
the CMS implementation.
What kind of content management are we talking about?
While your initial goal is probably to use content management to manage and publish
Web-based content, we ask you to broaden your view to the wider concept of publications. We call this
enterprise content management. There is a huge amount of power and flexibility in a well-designed
enterprise content management system. With imagination (and some custom programming) you can publish to
many formats besides the Web—print formats, PDAs, databases, and so on. Thinking in these terms will
prepare you for the inevitable day when a Web site is just one of the publications that your CMS
produces. If your target for now is simply Web content management, and you are only interested in
publishing a large Web site, the planner will still help you. Just pay less attention to the parts that
have you plan for multiple publications.
What stage are you at?
Content management projects happen in various ways. Some organizations select a CMS product,
purchase it, and then get started on project planning and content analysis. Others analyze and plan first
and then find the product that is most appropriate to their needs. Still others gather the requirements
they need to build their own CMS.
In any case, the planner can help. The planner assumes that you will do analysis and
planning before selecting what system to use. Essentially, the
analysis and planning is a requirements gathering process. Just as you would create a comprehensive set
of requirements before selecting any major enterprise application, you do the same for a CMS. Regardless
of what stage you're at, the CMS Metatorial Planner can be useful in defining the goals and constraints
of your system. If you decide to build your own custom system, the information you gather here can form
the basis for the software requirements definition.
What can you expect from CMS Metatorial Planner™?
We created this planner to help you uncover and organize the needs and constraints of your
particular situation so you can approach content management implementation armed with solid and relevant
information about what you need.
No matter which way you go—developing your own system, or customizing a commercial CMS
product—you cannot avoid the detailed work of analyzing and dissecting your content. This planner helps
you do that. When you are ready to implement your CM solution, you can then incorporate the knowledge and
data you have collected in the planner into your system.
Using the Planner and the Worksheets
Each section of the planner has you first review some introductory information in a section
from the Content Management Bible (if you need to), then look at an example, and finally, complete
worksheets that are provided as Word templates. Each of the numbered and named examples in the planner
corresponds to a template you will complete.
The planner is made up of 15 sections. Here's how we recommend proceeding through each
section:
- Read through the Background Information in the Content Management Bible if you feel that you need
to.
- Look at the "Think" questions and jot down notes about how you might answer the questions for your
organization.
- Review the Example, the completed worksheet for each section, to get an idea of how to fill in your
own worksheets.
- Complete the corresponding Plan worksheet(s), saving them a in a directory where you are storing all
of your CMS planning documents. Refer back to the example worksheets in this planner if you are unsure
how to fill in any of your own.
- Look at the Integrate questions and, again, jot down notes. If you determine that any of the
information in your worksheets needs to change based on new findings, work with your team to agree on
the changes and update the information as appropriate.
At the end of this planner, we provide instructions for creating a comprehensive report that
pulls together all of your findings into a format that is ready to review and use.
How to get started
To get started, we suggest that you read through the planner, and use it as a basis for
creating your project plan for the content analysis and planning phases of the project. You may also
choose to print and bind copies of the planner to distribute as workbooks for yourself and others on your
team.
How long will it take?
If you're highly organized and efficient (and aren't dealing with a huge amount of content)
you may be able to work through the planner in a few weeks. However, try to set a realistic timeline.
It's a lot of information to gather and there are many decisions to make. The process can take many
months, depending on your scope and the decision-making processes in your organization.
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