According to the recent AIIM State of the Industry Survey, there is some variation in terms of the primary obstacles facing organizations as they consider enterprise content management.
When asked, "What were the top 3 obstacles encountered during your implementation?" survey respondents replied:
44% = Underestimated process and organizational issues
32% = Lack of knowledge or training among our internal staff
30% = Project derailed by internal politics29% = Uneven usage due to poor procedures and lack of enforcement
21% = Underestimated the effort to distill and migrate content
20% = Excessive "scope creep"
19% = Failed to address taxonomy and metadata concerns
18% = Low user acceptance due to poor design or clumsy implementation
16% = Failed to think or benefits/issues beyond our business unit.
16% = Poorly defined business case
13% = Lack of knowledge or training among our external staff/suppliers
13% = Budget was overrun
12% = Failed to prioritize "high-value" content
One clear difference between large and small organizations -- as one would expect -- is the challenge of overcoming internal politics. Maintaining focus and consistency and management leadership across the life of a project -- particularly those that entail significant process change and redefinition -- is very challenging for large organizations.
Management buy-in and consistency is critical given that the number one obstacle across organizations of all sizes is "Underestimated process and organizational issues."
Another common challenge in organizations is "Lack of knowledge or training among our internal staff." This seems like an appropriate place for a shameless plug of the AIIM training program.
Surprisingly, some of the obstacles that are usually at the top of any anecdote about ECM disasters -- Excessive "scope creep," "Poorly defined business case," "Budget was overrun," ranked significantly lower than some obstacles usually considered as "softer."