This document discusses moving from a "business parenting" approach to collaboration system implementation and use, to a partnership approach. It outlines the common stages of child development and links them to typical stages of collaboration maturity within an organization. Business parenting can be costly and lead to issues like inappropriate system use, user frustration, and lost ROI. The key is identifying each community's stage of maturity and empowering users to grow their skills and collaboration. Moving to a partnership model where IT and users work as equals toward shared goals provides the best outcomes.

1. Business Parenting Columbus Brown DFW SharePoint Users Group 8/16/2011

2. Business Parenting Who needs to know about it? End Users, Administrators, IT, Decision Makers What you will get out of this session? Some valuable entertainment at my expense Practical steps to move from parenting to partnership

3. About Columbus Management Consultant – Slalom Consulting Education-BSME, MBA, LeTourneau University Specialties-Project Management, SharePoint Administration and Governance 2007/2010, Enterprise Collaboration, New Product Development Interests – Gourmet Cooking, Jazz Piano, Autocross, Aviation, Habitat for Humanity

4. Business Parenting When in the early developmental stages of the deployment of a collaboration system, improper approaches lead to a negative and costly parent-child relationship between end users and IT administrators. Users are not children, and IT should not be parents. Partnership across the overall organization is the approach that maximizes the financial benefits and social opportunities across the organization. DONE!

5. Questions Who has kids or has relatives with kids? Who likes having kids? Who is a member of an IT organization? Who uses social media?

6. Business Parenting What is Business Parenting? Why is this so costly? What are the stages of development? How do I navigate around common obstacles? Moving from Business Parenting to Business Partnership

7. What is Business Parenting? An approach to developing disciplined collaboration that moves from parent-child relationships to authentic business partnerships. Accounts for the collaboration maturity level of the communities within an organization Seeks to develop communities to higher levels of collaboration over time

8. An IT professionals take on her clients kids “They are demanding, selfish, unappreciative, and cost you a lot of money, yet bring unimaginable joy when they achieve the simplest things that we take for granted” Sound familiar?

9. Symptoms of Bad Parenting Inappropriate public behavior Whining Tantrums Abusive Language Lack of boundaries Disrespect for authority Hitting, spitting, and quitting Taking others toys

10. Symptoms of Bad Business Parenting End users are using the system inappropriately End users complain about the collaboration tool Decision makers give ultimatums for immediate changes to the system Admins say end users are not using the system Admins get repeated requests for basic tasks like permissions, finding things (nagavation), number of requests are overwhelming

11. Symptoms of Bad Business Parenting-Cont. End users frustrated at constantly have to ask permission from IT to do simple things quickly End users can’t find information, and limited training is readily available Company has a collaboration tool but people are still unwilling to: help, seek input, work with each other, or play well with others Each side feels like a parent wishing the other would grow up and get out of their house.

12. Why is this so costly? No home training, and no rules, leads to inappropriate behavior. If I don’t discipline you, the police will and I will end up bailing you out. No end user training, and inadequate governance, leads to inappropriate usage and IT ends up cleaning up the mess.

15. Why is this so costly? Business strategy can be affected without appropriate governance. IT bottlenecks are created without proper training Estimated cost of not properly implementing Sharepoint for a midsize company (6000 users). $1-$2 million ROI is lost when end users are not using solution fully or appropriately.

16. What are the stages of child development? Infants Communicate by crying Explore w/hands and mouth Need constant nurturing Toddler Speaks 50 words Creeps, Crawls then Walks Loves the word NO Childhood Speaks sentences, 2500 words Plays with others Does basic “tasks” independently Wants to have and be like friends

17. What are the stages of child development? Preadolescence Begins to separate from parents Silliness rules Peer pressure Clumsiness and rapid growth Adolescence Rocky path to independence and separation Heavily influenced by their peers Seek out advice from friends instead of parents Friendship and romance Adulthood Independent Self-sufficient Responsible Accountable

18. What are the stages of collaboration? Document Storage- Infants Information Creation - Toddlers Leveraging – Childhood/Preadolescence Sharing - Adolescence Process Enablement - Adulthood

19. How do I navigate the common obstacles? Identify the stage of each community Empower users to grow their communities to the next stage. Adjust training to target stages instead of just roles Push for training and governance on financial grounds

21. Users ultimately are not children, and IT should not be parents.