CMS Principles, reviewed:

So there you have it.  Nine ideas for principles in a Church Management System.
1.  Trusted
2.  Used
3.  Easy
4.  Consistent
5.  Available
6.  Comprehensive
7.  Extensible
8.  Robust
9.  Secure

What did I miss? (be kind)  What do you want to see in a CMS?  How satisfied are you with the one you have?

A few other random after-thoughts
Brian Bailey is far more creative than I am.  He came up with some principles that fit a nice acronym, COFFEE.  Friendly and Excellent -- those would be nice additions (or replacements) in my list.  Wish I'd thought of them.

How much do you like your software?  Creating Passionate Users put together an interesting idea: what would your software be like on a date?

Tony Morgan captured a great quote from Marissa Mayer of Google.   This nails it -- we want the full power, but give us the friendly exposure to it.  The entire article, The Beauty of Simplicity, from Fast Company is well worth the read.

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Comments

[Tavie Allan]

Looks like you covered the highlights well - good job! The only thing that comes to mind may not be a direct hit, but is at least tangential to the success of your dream CMS product... and that is "Sponsored".

We've talked before about the importance of leadership within the organization impacting the success or failure of IT (and other) projects. Much of what you've covered speaks to the need of the product to basically sell itself and win converts as soon as they touch the keyboard. I agree that is important. I also think that in our sinful state, we (as users) don't always think about or put the appropriate level of effort into doing what's best for the Kingdom. Many times it just comes down to laziness and comfort. Lots of folks will choose the devil they know over the one they don't (pun intended :). You could put the best product that meets all of the 9 principles in front of an organization, but if there's a lack of leadership, it can still fail. Leadership can help overcome those obstacles from those who don't have a good reason not to budge, but refuse to budge nonetheless... they like the 'pain' of the old way.

It's sad in a way that leadership is necessary - we should all be able to gravitate to the best solution and automatically all be on the same page without justification or prompting... but, alas, I believe it is reality.

So, I would humbly suggest your list is incomplete until you tie in the organizational piece of leadership with 'Sponsored' or some other descriptor.

For His Glory,
Tavie.