WordPress and the Enterprise (Bureaucracy)

Any project or system tagged with the word ‘enterprise’€ comes with baggage.  Enterprises are bureaucracies filled with standards, process maps, rule books, and more.  In many ways, WordPress represents ideals that oppose bureaucratic inertia…and given that, we can ask if WordPress is a good fit or an accident waiting to happen if it’s dropped into an ‘enterprise’€?    This talk aims to help developers, consultants and corporate staff understand key issues to consider at the start of a project in order to make sure the WordPress roll-out goes as smoothly as possible.   The presentation is based upon my experience installing WordPress and other nimble software systems within corporate bureaucracies.  Specifically, I will address these points:    1) Corporate users aren’t bloggers or hackers     * Many understand the WordPress editor and ease of use, but couldn’t install it themselves     * Some are IT-phobic, thanks to bureaucratic IT departments     * They expect integration – single sign on, open files automatically, etc…    2) Enterprise IT departments often “like WordPress, but not in our datacenter” because:     * Nobody gets fired for buying Microsoft     * Who will support it?  Who will we call?  (Linux, PHP, etc etc)     * Standards, policies, and more were not built with open source velocity in mind…    3) WordPress strengths can make it difficult to fully integrate into an enterprise IT environment.     * WordPress has “stand-alone” roots; not built thinking “how will this fit into a corporate IT world?”     * There isn’t a plug-in for everything; you may need to roll your own!    End message: WordPress can be a solid part of an enterprise environment, but you need to set expectations, gather good requirements, and know where the big ‘enterprise’ challenges are lurking.