2. My SharePoint background
• As BT intranet manager, I implemented
SP2010 governance, standards and features
• Since leaving I help other organisations to:
– develop SharePoint strategies
– build governance frameworks
• Roles, responsibilities, standards, support, training
– encourage best use of SharePoint features
3. Agenda
• SharePoint 2003 - 2013
• What can you do to make SharePoint ‘good’ or
‘bad’?
• What steps do you need to take?
• What does ‘good’ look like?
• How your SharePoint can be ‘good’
4. Is SharePoint ‘good’ or ‘bad’?
• Each SharePoint version has features to help
but other features may hinder you use it
• But Microsoft don’t package up ‘good’ or ‘bad’
versions of SharePoint
• It is how you implement SharePoint that helps
people feel if it is good or bad
5.
6. Developing a strategy for SharePoint
Plan
Resources
Culture
Strategy
User
experience
and needs
Governance
Business
strategy
11. Content types
Accredited (branded)
Authoritative and reliable. People use it with
confidence; know it is up to date and
relevant. Usually information has a large
audience. Few people can edit it. Usually one
person will own and manage it.
Collaborative (OOTB)
Can be owned by everyone, an individual or
community. Anyone can contribute or comment on
it. It can be a view expressed which is wrong or can
change quickly or be changed many times.
12.
13. User experience
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
‘Mega menu’ at the top of page with titles that expand to show most
popular/important content
Site menu on left side of page to navigate to site’s contents
Breadcrumb trail to help people navigate easily back to a previous page on their
journey
Title of each page to show in the header and footer of every page
Common principles of navigation, functionality, and look and feel with the option
of having distinct branding
Content to have an owner, review and last updated date shown at bottom of page
Content sections show what they contain. People can collapse or expand sections
to show links and content within them
Some sections can be forced to stay open e.g. corporate news
My Profile provides information about individual to help you realise this is the
right person. Can include contact details, location, manager where they work,
whereabouts and relevant information, experience and interests
21. Summary
• There are factors that influence why people
feel SharePoint is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ apart from
the technology itself.
• It is more likely to be how you have
approached and implemented SharePoint
rather than the tools and features people can
use.
It is important you have a strategy for your intranet or digital workplace that SharePoint can be shown will help to achieve. A strategy helps set the direction you are moving in. It helps identify key priorities you need to achieve to help your organisation. Timescales also help to manage expectations and show what is practical from what is aspirational.
You should not just have a SharePoint strategy. That can lead to you delivering technology solutions that don’t meet the aims of your organisation or cover wider aspects of cultural change. Your strategy must not be based on SharePoint: it should be wider and align with your organisation’s overall strategy and related areas e.g. IT, Comms, HR, etc. and measure the benefits.
You need to have a governance framework that underpins your strategy in the long and short term. This means having clear roles and responsibilities, linking these together into a hierarchy with publishing standards, training and processes for new content editors.Without a governance framework people could be unclear on the purpose of each SharePoint tool e.g. MySite, TeamSite, and how is the best and most appropriate way to use them. Without a governance framework there can be chaos and a digital mess that can be very difficult to untangle and gain any benefit from for a long time.
PlanningHave a clear plan for why you need to use SharePoint, what you need to achieve, how you plan to achieve it, and when you need to complete each phase by. This helps you to see what is the best approach and prioritise the way you introduce SharePoint to people in your organisation.If you are planning to replace many existing online tools e.g content and document management systems and/or collaborative tools it is critical that you consider the impact that actions taken in an earlier phase could have knock-on effects during a later phase (which maybe 1-2 years ahead) e.g. permissions, SharePoint Designer.Without any plan the consequences for your organisation and people’s online experience could be disastrous. SharePoint is a very powerful tool and needs to be managed carefully!
EducationYou need to have a strong communication and training approach to anyone who will be touched by SharePoint whether that is your CEO, content editor or casual user or contributor.People publishing and using SharePoint information need to appreciate that it is not all the same in its value (something I will be writing about in the future) e.g. a policy is unlikely to change frequently and be inaccurate but an opinion expressed in a discussion group may be inaccurate, incomplete, change next day.People need to understand the differences in the information they use and behave accordingly in their judgement and actions based on how much value they place on it.SharePoint is more than a change of technology, it can change business policies, processes and how people behave when they have a problem or want to share some helpful information.
Business needI have heard how IT have approached the business saying “we have this free tool option on top of X product that we’ve bought which we’re going to use for Y purpose”. It’s a natural reaction to test out something for free but many organisations have found it doesn’t work out the way it is planned.Firstly, you need to make sure you have a business problem that SharePoint is a good (note I didn’t say the best) technology solution to solve. Sometimes I have seen the introduction of SharePoint create problems that didn’t exist before.Make sure you involve people who will be affected by any changes you plan to make as early as possible who can also test these to see if they do help as you expect SharePoint to and feedback any issues to be acted upon before it is launched.Your organisation needs to be clear on what the problems and their root causes are before considering whether technology, and if so, which solution e.g. SharePoint can best help resolve the problem
People Finder
Standard SP 2010 OOTB
This shows MyProfile for me. It has the same features as the current Directory but has flexibility for me to add more information about myself to help people decide more easily if I can help them.
The Overview tab enables people to see what topics I may be able to help them with and my skills which I added but will soon automatically be added from BT’s HR systems. I will still be able to add extra skills if I want to.
By clicking on ‘Browse in organisation chart’ you move from MyProfile to MySite and can see how my role fits within BT and who are my peers, manager, etc………..and see what they look like too!There is a comment box at the top where you can say what you’re thinking if you wish to.
The MySite content shows to people who have the right permissions any content that I have been publishing in SharePoint 2010. This helps people to find other people who can share their knowledge with me on a shared interest without any extra effort needed by me.