Moving a major cultural institution
onto an Open Source WCM
environment
Richard Morgan

Introductions
• The V&A
• The world’s greatest museum of art and
design
• http://www.vam.ac.uk

Introductions
• Richard Morgan
• Web Technical Manager
• r.morgan(at)vam.ac.uk
• rpfmorg(at)googlemail.com
• rmorg on twitter

Introductions
• A website redesign for the V&A
• Putting the entire collections database
online
• Creating a new website for the V&A
• A new Content Management System

Procurement – what we did
• Create a short shortlist
• A mixture of Open Source and
Commercial offers
• Tender designed for companies to “choose
a system” and “propose a model”
• Statement of requirement focus was on
the company, not an endless list of CMS
features

Evaluation
• A technical evaluation of the system
– Asked for a Virtual Machine for us to play with
– Could we accomplish basic tasks on the
system – without a manual?

User testing
• Even a little user testing is a lot better than
none
• No training, no previous experience – the
ultimate usability test for “museum” users
• A simple task

Import and migration
• Could we import items into the system
without much help?
• Was it going to work?

Interviews with stakeholders
• Test of the cost model
• Test of the project management approach
• Test of the relationship
• We made a nuisance of ourselves

Technical strategy
• Web Content Management is hard …
• … and Content Management Systems are
all terrible.
• As for Content Management System
clients…

No Platonic CMS
• A good CMS is not an end in itself
• Who wants to be known for great
management of content?

Linked data and applications
• CMS was not the “master” system
• Play to the strengths of the system
• Use alternatives rather than squeezing in
functionality that doesn’t work
• But consumption and provision of services
is vital

Spread the risk
• Using multiple systems reduces the risk
associated with any one system
• Is ok to be complex, not complicated

Spread the cost
• Different sources of funding available at
different times
• Many projects, not coordinated means a
variable cost model throughout the
financial year

Open Source or Commercial?
• The “traditional” risks of open source are
well known
• OpenSource is free … but it still costs
money
• But commercial solutions cost money too

Software or services?
• Focus on delivery, not elegance
• The museum does not want a Content
Management System, it wants a website
• Time and materials requires firm project
management
• But broken promises on fixed cost projects
help nobody

Flexibility
• A variable cost model allows migration to
be done piecemeal
• An opensource model where functionality
can be extended …
• … delivers incremental improvements to
challenged users

Agility
• Migrating content incrementally
• Improving interfaces incrementally
• Delivering many small projects with a
small ace team
• An agile project management approach is
required

“Mixed model” development
• Empower the museum to create its own
website
• But guard against variable staffing levels
• Co-location days transfer knowledge
• Doing simple things with a few systems is
easier than doing complicated things with
one system

Conclusions
• Buying CMS “software” is just taking a hit
before getting to work
• Content Management Systems should do
services well
• Content Management Systems should not
poorly replicate functionality in other
systems
• Flexibility, agility, delivery and service