Making the most out of SDL Tridion

You are redesigning your SDL Tridion Implementation, or have just started with SDL Tridion, or are thinking about using SDL Tridion…

… now your thoughts move to the implementation of SDL Tridion and may be wondering …

 “How can I make the most out of SDL Tridion”

Here are a few tips:

1.       The first thing you should do is keep in mind why you have SDL Tridion in the first place:

·         Localization and globalization management

·         Corporate branding strategy and management

·         Multilingual, multisite, multi-brand, multichannel  support

·         Reusability and maintainability

·         … (feel free to add your own)

You should engrave those points and put them somewhere visible, as this will help you making decisions later on.

2.       Define your Online Business plans for the coming 2 and 6 years and align with the SDL Tridion implementation

·         2 years - e.g.

a.       Rebranding of Corporate, Brand A and B websites

b.      Corporate sites in X languages

c.       Brands A and B in Y Countries and Z Languages

d.      Mobile for Brand A  in Z Languages

e.      Translation and Localization strategies

f.        Overall Web Team (your organization)

·         6 years – e.g.

a.       All External facing websites managed from SDL Tridion (including all those resistant to align with the overall Online strategy)

3.       Define your Content Management Organization (CMO) for the website management, i.e. the CMS users and teams.

For some, this is the most complex area to analyze and change, as the project team usually has no control over the different editorial teams, their tasks and their internal processes.

Typically, there are two ways to go about the CMO:

·         Centralized CMO: A central team manages all the websites. Your organization is able to trigger changes on the website but the changes are executed by a central, specialized and trained team.

·         Decentralized CMO: Your organization is able to make changes on the website themselves. E.g. Marketing team can create an event on the website.

Note: Both scenarios have pros and cons and can impact the organization. We should extend this topic in future post.

4.       Empower your team to make correct decisions.

Are you ready for SDL Tridion? How much do you know about SDL Tridionproduct features, best practices, possibilities, solutions…?

Think of how you are going to build a project team that can analyze, design, implement, test, and rollout your websites. Think of these areas Project Plan, Web Strategy, Content Management Organization, technical implementation and infrastructure.

There are a few ways you can go about it, usually you should pick and mix:

·         Train your team in the early stages of the project

·         Involve your team in the decision making

·         Get support from experts

·         Make your team and experts work together

The aim is to gain as much knowledge as possible as early as possible. In this way, your teams can control the implementation from the early stages and can gradually take ownership of the implementation, at all organizational levels.

Remember that experts will eventually leave and, at the end, you will need to manage the websites yourself.

5.       I take it that you know (or have people that knows) how to define and execute a project plan and get started with the technical implementation.