I have worked with people and organizations that have implemented CMS, but did not need the full power, and only make occasional updates. On the other hand, I have suggested CMS to some instead of expensive, proprietary site-management tools, or cobbling together a complex site one piece at a time. Similar to a car, if you put in an underpowered engine, you'll have more down time and mechanic's bills than you save up-front. Or, if you put in an expensive high-powered racing engine but never use it, you've wasted time and money on potential that you'll never need.

So, consider these statements to help decide if a CMS is appropriate for your site:

• We spend more than $100/month (hired or working hours) or $1000/year dealing with problems and/or formatting issues on our current site.
• We want to add new stories or information to our site about once a week, or more often.
• We'd like to invite comments and discussions of the information we present, but want to moderate or approve the postings.
• We want a search function that automatically updates when information changes on our site.
• Our site should automatically archive or remove older information when newer items are posted, or on a regular schedule.
• We'd like to allow people (approved users, or just anyone) to create their own discussion topics, and/or respond to others'.
• We want to gather some information about our visitors.
• Our site should allow different users access to different information. For example, anyone can see our general news, vision and mission statements, but only approved people can see certain "insider" news items, or comment on published information.
• We have scheduled events, and want visitors to browse a calendar.
• We'd like people to be able to register to attend or volunteer for events.
• Our site should show pictures of past events, or just have an image gallery that we maintain.
• We want to show "banner ads" (commercials, or bringing attention to other organizations), and want to track or control them (which show on which pages, how many displays/clicks, etc).
• Our site should have a simple poll question that we can easily control, and see historical results.
• We're concerned about spam e-mail, and want to protect our addresses.
• We'd like an automatically-updating site map.
• We'd like to display filtered "headlines" (RSS feeds) from specific other sites/media, and/or syndicate our news to others.