Boxes and Arrows has an article on Managing the Complexity of Content Management:

...the issues are many, spanning strategy, design, content, technology, training and several others. One conclusion we can make is that content management has become a very large category—attempting to include content authoring, metadata authoring, database-backed websites, workflow management, and even thesaurus management—and instead of making CMS a goal you might start by focusing on which of these functions you need. Otherwise, the general complexity becomes the central problem facing any content management project.

The article goes on to list some things that can help make the process manageable, including:

• Keep the team small
• Don't try to fix everything at once
• Build only what you need
• Buy the right size