Bear Essentials: Your CMS Isn’t Broken; It’s Misused
Perception
You think your CMS is inadequate; it doesn’t offer the features and functionality needed to deliver the content experiences your teams are creating. Teams complain about the interface and workflows, and blame the Dev team. The Dev team blames the vendor. The vendor blames the implementation partner.
Reality
Your CMS isn’t broken; your governance is. The root cause of marketing and content woes is rarely the technology. More often than not, it’s the lack of ownership, and endless workarounds, exceptions, and ad hoc “processes”, in a word, chaos, that you call content operations.
Those are not CMS problems; those are organizational courage and clarity problems.
Why It Matters
- Adding unnecessary tools adds complexity and cost, leading to lower ROI and slower TTM.
- Blaming technology typically means the root problem (process) is not being addressed.
- Content suffers in terms of access, visibility, ownership, etc.
What Most Teams Get Wrong
- Buying a new CMS (or any tech) instead of fixing roles/workflow.
- Assuming user training solves governance.
- Overlooking metadata before tool deployment.
- Selecting technology without direct input from stakeholders.
What to Do Instead
- Review and address governance issues first: ownership, roles, processes, access, etc.
- Audit metadata practices and taxonomy.
- Align tool use with team workflows, not OOTB (out-of-the-box) templates.
Seventh Bear Take
Fix the process, then the tech will shine.
Deeper Dive
Want more on this topic? Check out: Its Sink or Swim in the Deep End of the Tech Enablement Pool.
