I’ve heard from a couple of organizations in the past few months that are considering deploying their next association management system (CRM for the rest of the world) in conjunction with a content management system.

An AMS deployment alone will suck up all the oxygen in a typical npo IT department, occupying resources for months on end. A CMS deployment is resource intensive as well, especially if it is the first such system for an organization. Both usually drive a lot of business process changes during the deployment process. Trying to do both simultaneously is a big bite to chew.

This is not to say that it isn’t critically important to identify your AMS-CMS integration needs and plan on how to eventually do the integration. It is important. However, that doesn’t mean you have to plonk them both down at the same time in order to have an effective integration. Do one and get it right before you do the other if at all possible.