Senior leadership beliefs about the critical success factors in content management systems in federal agencies

This qualitative phenomenological study examined the experiences of federal agency senior leadership with the implementation of multiple CMSs, their use across business platforms, and the related critical success factors in the use of content management in the public sector. The study is comprised of descriptive accounts of senior agency IT leadership as perceived by nine senior agency leadership professionals who met the selection criteria: minimum three years content management experience in the public sector. Current research into the use of content management systems in the public sector leaves a gap in the literature. The data were generated through semi-structured interviews and analyzed using the modified van Kaam methodology. The federal government is faced with an increased supply of disparate content management systems, and the current use of multiple CMSs creates unique scenarios in the federal environment. The increased CMS demand at the agency level affects efficiency levels, budgetary constraints, and IT resource allocation. Fourteen themes were extracted from the data; six core themes supported by current literature and eight emerging themes discovered during the data analysis. The extracted themes are as follows: (1) decision-making; (2) understanding business requirements; (3) system efficiency; (4) system knowledge and training; (5) IT framework; (6) system functionality; (7) consistency; (8) ease of use; (9) content standardization; (10) administration controls and system editors; (11) platform differences; (12) adaptability; (13) CMS priority/resources; and (14) content streamlining. The study identified different levels of public sector and content management experience expressed a need for a clearly defined decision-making process in CMS management. The decision-making aspect of CMS management directly affects each aspect of the discovered themes in the research study.