Volume 2

Issue 2

June 2005

Editorial The Elusive Business Case An idea is only as good as your ability to make a case for it. Unless you can convince others to adopt it, it remains an idea. To get your idea out of "your head" and implemented in your organization, you have to convince others that it's a good idea, why it's a good idea, what it'll do for them, what it will cost, and more importantly, what they'll get in return. But, moving an idea from your head into others' heads is often the reason why many good ideas never get implemented. You need to be able to make a business case for it, a elusive skill for many of us! However, there is help. In this issue of The Rockley Report we describe how to make a business case for a content management implementation. Rahel Bailie and Nina Junco open the issue with their article on making a business case. They go beyond the dollars and cents, which, while important, need to translated into a story that management can understand. Other articles focus on various aspects of making a business case: In "Creating a Winning ROI, Ann Rockley provides guidelines for determining ROI as part of your business case, emphasizing that costs must be realistic so your ROI is accurate and believable A business case should also consider that implementing content management affects people. In "Change Management: Dealing with Emotions", Philippe Robitaille discusses the different ways in which people may react to content management and suggests strategies for coping with them. Understanding different emotional reactions can help you to build change management into your business case. In our case study, Lori Kegel, Manager and Project Sponsor for Guidant Technical Communications, tells us how they gained support for their content management project. We also provide you with a number of tips for creating a business case, as well as some advice on how to show "due diligence" to support your content management technology selection. In this installment of In the News, you'll find links to web sites where you can learn about the hurdles preventing some organizations from adopting content management, what the common business drivers are, and how to determine total cost of implementation. We welcome your feedback. Please send comments, as well as suggestions for stories in future issues to kostur@rockley.com. Our Call for Submissions describes the kind of stories we're looking for and how you can submit articles for publication in future issues.