5. High Level Requirements
Start by forgetting all about technology.
What is your business "problem" or "investment"?
More productive staff
new / better intranet for internal communication
enable remote / mobile / virtual teams
connect with external partners / suppliers / clients
improve business intelligence
implement better records managements
connect disparate systems into a single dashboard
view
better document / content / records management
6. User Requirements
Engage users early to avoid resistance to
changing the way they work
Ask their opinions on what you are aiming to
achieve
Find out their current pain points
Understand the way they "really" work
Path of least resistance
Build user requirements
What you think they want / need
What they think they want
What they don't know they want (Apple / Henry Ford)
8. Technology Selection
When you know what you want to achieve, you
can check that SharePoint is the right tool..... Or
part of the right solution
Know what SharePoint IS and more importantly
what it ISN'T
Run your ideas by an experienced consultant to see
if there are known "foibles" with what you want to do
Make sure you compare alternatives to prove you
made the right judgement should someone come
asking
Huddle, Google Apps, Documentum, Lotus Notes,
Umbraco, etc
9. Technology Selection
Based on your expected number of servers /
users and Standard or Enterprise, get an
early indicative estimate of license costs.
SharePoint can be expensive.
Make sure you can afford it.
Engage yourself in the technologies ASAP
SharePoint User Group (http://www.suguk.org)
Training Courses
Prototype environment(s)
11. Environment Suitability
Think about external systems that you might want to "integrate"
What are they? What APIs do they expose?
How do they relate to other external systems?
Can they handle / cope with the extra demand of being integrated
within SharePoint?
Who are and where are your user objects hosted?
Active Directory? Non-MS directory?
LDAP query to filter out unwanted objects (such as disabled accounts)
Where is User Profile information stored?
AD? ADAM? HR application? SQL server?
12. Environment Suitability
Who are your users and where are they located?
Central / single office?
Multiple offices in the same country?
International?
On-the-road mobile sales force?
Home workers?
Locations with limited network access
– Building / construction sites?
– Remote areas?
– Underwater in sub-marines for 6 months?
13. Environment Suitability
What does your network / internetwork infrastructure look like?
Can it will handle the load? Does it need some investment?
Desktop and devices
What OS / browsers / office are your users using? Do they need
upgrading?
Smartphone and tablet access?
Support capability
Do you have the technical capability to implement / manage a
SharePoint Environment?
Experience is needed, not just training courses
Love and attention compared to most IT Services
14. Data suitability
Where is your data currently stored?
Computer desktops
File shares
Exchange public folders
Spreadsheets
External systems
Can you "Tidy up" your data early on?
Junk in, Junk out
Collate content and categorise in folders
Identify latest versions and remove duplicates
Archive old data
16. Design your services
Don't design a bunch of SharePoint Servers that
the business can use to host stuff on
Do design the services that you want to deliver
and then build the infrastructure to support that
MySites
Intranet Publishing Site
Search Portal
etc
Understand the information flow around and
between these services
Information management lifecycle
17. Design your platform
We are still not thinking about servers at this point…
Design your Platform with a long term strategy in mind
You can make your life very difficult if you don't consider the
long term governance of the platform, e.g. How are managed
metadata service applications going to be governed and used
by the business?
Limit your scope and build a roadmap
Ease it on to the business
– Limit requirements on the infrastructure to ensure it can cope
– Less to go wrong, less to support
– Less "change" for the users to learn
– Less to deliver in each phase
Learn as you go
Accept that you will never be "done"
19. Design your infrastructure
Where will SharePoint be hosted?
On-premises
Azure
Hosted
Office365
Hybrid
Farm Structure
Centralised farm
Multiple farms (connected or not?)
Services farm(s) (such as search) and content
farms?
Regional farms with / without a central core farm
20. Design your infrastructure
SharePoint Landscape
Pre-Production farms (dev, test, QA)
Production farm
Disaster Recovery farm
Backup / Restore plan and SLAs
21. Phase 6
Implement and Test – Infrastructure
Implement and Test - Services
22. Implement and Test - Infrastructure
Build the platform
Test the platform
Stress test the platform
Test the Backup AND Restore processes
Test the DR plan
23. Implement and Test - Services
Services implementation can start in
parallel to your infrastructure
Agree service pack and patch levels and
build developer environments
27. SharePoint CoE
Steering Committee
SharePoint management
Business / IT Contacts
Projects Management Office
Training / Communications
Support
Implementation (SMEs, Developers, Ias)
28. Constant Communication
Keep users updated on the roadmap
Highlight new features
Promote user self- support communities
Allow them to share tips and tricks
Lunch and learns