1. May 2013
Making Good Choices: General Mills SharePoint
Journey

2.  Me – Background and why I’m here
 General Mills – SharePoint
Past, Present, Future
 Best Practices for SharePoint Projects
1. Start: Buy-In, Business Value, What are we
getting?
2. Plan: Objectives & Governance
3. Deliver: Usability & Features
4. Ongoing: Training, Adoption, Support, Road Map
 Key Features @ General Mills
 Questions
Overview - Topics

3. Who is General Mills?
 One of the largest food companies in the world
 Marketing in over 100 countries on six continents
 Half of 39,000 employees work outside the US
 Head-quarters in Minneapolis, MN

4. Who is General Mills?

5. General Mills – SharePoint
Timeline
2001 2003 2007 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 Future
SharePoint 2001 – WHQ Doc Management
SharePoint 2003 – US Manufacturing Plant Portals
SharePoint 2007 – Global ECM, Sites, Portals
SharePoint 2010 - ECM
SharePoint 2010 – FAST Search
SharePoint 2010 - Social
SharePoint 2013

6. General Mills - SharePoint
2011 2012 2013
SharePoint 2007 Sites 8,470 13,865 4,697
SharePoint 2010 Sites 0 794 3,115
Project Server Sites 0 0 12,545
Supply Chain Sites 0 0 451
Communities/Social Sites 0 489 668
My Sites 829 5,439 6,338
Total Sites 9,299 20,584 27,814
SharePoint 2007 Servers 13 19 13
SharePoint 2010 Servers 14 38 45
FAST Servers 2 21 29
Total Enterprise Servers 29 78 87
FAST Indexed Items 970,547 5,915,125 7,956,885
Corp
Systems
21%
[CATEGORY
NAME]
[PERCENTA
GE]
Internationa
l
16%
GCOM/CI
15%
ITQ
14%
Supply
Chain
10%
BOTG/Sales
6%
Sites by Business Area

7.  Understanding of what is being done
 ECM – More than document management
 Social – More than Facebook for the Company
 Search – SharePoint or FAST is not Enterprise
Search
 Ensure understanding of the investment
 Deployments are several phases
 Active and engaged ownership
 Staffing, Staffing, Staffing
1. Start: Leadership Understanding

8.  What’s the business value?
 How will ROI be determined?
 Ensure the demand is there
 What defined business requirements will be met?
 What application will be delivered as a part of this
project?
 What training or additional knowledge is required?
 Will business users take the time to adopt it?
 What are we getting?
 What does it do?
 Why should I use it?
 Is this replacing an existing system or
application?
1. Start: Business Value/ROI

9.  What pieces will be available and when?
 ECM – Enterprise Content Management
 Collaboration, Social Features
 Search
 Others: BCS, Access Services, Excel
Services, Power View, Custom Application
Development
 Communicate what will/will not be available
 If feature x isn’t available, what other options
should users consider?
2. Plan: Objectives & Governance

10.  Define logical architecture
 Use of the platform will determine the best model
 Web Applications - Publishing site, team
sites, communities
 Uptime requirements, user types (employees vs.
contractors or vendors)
 Key Learnings:
 Avoid deep structures based on organization
 Logical architecture needs to be “logical”
 One approach may not fit all scenarios
2. Plan: Objectives & Governance

11. 2. Plan: “Logical” Architecture
•Team Site: Basic out-of-box site with a General Mills master page.
Purpose: Facilitate sharing content with members of a team or project.Share
•Portal Site: Basic out-of-box portal site with custom General Mills
master page – flexible design that can be modified. Purpose: Share
information with an audience or host multiple sites.Portal
•Social Site: NewsGator Community. Purpose: A community to allow
membership and sharing with a cross functional or shared interest
group.Connect
•SharePoint site: Hybrid or Composite Applications. Purpose: Use for
sites with custom workflow or other SharePoint Designer
requirements.Solutions
•SharePoint Site: Everything that doesn’t fit into the containers defined
above. Purpose: Open container for custom code, defined ownership
models and geographical models.Custom

12.  Define physical architecture (farm structure)
 Usage scenarios
 Out of Box (Team Sites)
 SharePoint Designer (Publishing Sites)
 Custom Code (Solutions, Custom Web Applications)
 Up-time requirements – Patching windows
 User types/licensing – Employees, vendors, etc.
 Watch Out: Costs to add a server…
2. Plan: Physical Architecture

13. 2. Plan: Physical Architecture
Base SharePoint
sites – Share
(Team Sites) and
Portal (Portal
Sites), Intention
here is to stay in
out-of-box state.
Includes all
custom code
deployments, soc
ial
platform, hybrid
apps (Solutions).
Manufacturing
locations with
unique up-time
requirements.
Projects
requiring capital
fund mgmt. Uses
Project Server
2010 also.
External Access
enables vendors
and partners a
place to share
content.
Core
Content
Custom
Code
Supply
Chain
Project
Server
External
Access
2 PRD, 2 QA, 1 DEV 2 PRD, 2 QA, 1 DEV 2 PRD, 2 QA, 1 DEV 2 PRD, 2 QA, 1 DEV 2 PRD, 2 QA, 1 DEV
Shared Services
FAST Search for SharePoint
2 PRD, 2 QA, 1 DEV
14 PRD, 5 QA, 2 DEV
FAST Search
3 PRD, 3 QA, 2 DEV
SharePoint 2010 Farm Architecture

14.  Governance
 Users and platform features
 What authority will users have for their sites?
 What features will be available and where?
 Content Life Cycle
 Provisioning – How are sites created and who can create
them?
 Retention – How are sites and content items cleaned up?
 Fences of SharePoint
 Site Owner Test
 Sub Web Governance
 Site Quotas
2. Plan: Objectives & Governance

15. 2. Plan: Fences of SharePoint
•Sub Webs: 2 x 5 (2 Sub Levels, 5 Total Sub Sites) - Quota: 30 GB
•Requirements: Pass Site Owner Test, No other approvalShare
•Sub Webs: 3 x 10 (3 Sub Levels, 10 Total Sub Sites) - Quota: 30 GB
•Requirements: Pass Site Owner Test, Manager NotificationPortal
•Sub Webs: 2 x 5 (2 Sub Levels, 5 Total Sub Sites) - Quota: 30 GB
•Requirements: Pass Site Owner Test & Connect Community Owner
Training. Approval required by Connect Community Admin.
Connect
•Sub Webs: Varies – Quota: Varies (Max 150 GB)
•Requirements: Pass Site Owner Test, Consultation from SP
Team, Defined and Accepted Support Plan
Solutions
•Sub Webs: Varies – Quota: Varies (Max 150 GB)
•Requirements: Pass Site Owner Test, Ongoing consultation from SP
Team and Solution Manager, Defined and Accepted Support PlanCustom
• Security – Allowed Groups, Default Security, Best Practices
• Awareness – Site types, intended usage, limitations and support
• Requirements – What’s responsibilities do site owners have?
Site Owner Test

16.  Give people a tool set they can understand
 Avoid - “SharePoint can do everything”
 People use SharePoint for what they know
 Provide examples of how others are using it
 Keep things close to out-of-box
 Weight the benefits and costs of custom
 Don’t create multiple ways to accomplish the
same tasks
3. Deliver: Usability & Features

17.  Promote the platform
 Document and promote success stories
 Ensure people have the training they need to use
it
 Training comes in many forms
 If you build it, they might come
 Users need see the value to them and their role
 Users follow the past of least resistance
 ROI and value measurements are relative
4. Ongoing: Adoption & Training

18.  Beware of the power user
 Power user boundaries
 Examples – Workflows, Site Designs
 Support
 User and Platform Support
 Ensure you have a plan for the future
 What input channels are available for user
feedback?
 If feature x isn’t available now, will it ever be?
 What future features will be necessary to add?
 Staffing Plan
 Incremental resources for features and versions
4. Ongoing: Support & Road Map

19.  Site Provisioning
 Enterprise Search
 Site Catalog – Ties sites together…
 External Access Sites and FBA
 SharePoint Center of Excellence Site
 SharePoint Connect Community
Key Features @ General Mills

20. May 2013
Questions?