Stop talking about features, features, features in your SharePoint Governance.

1. SharePoint Governance
Stop talking about features,
features, features in your
SharePoint Governance
Patrick Sledz
@patman2520
http://www.officeandbusiness.be

2. Register today and save $500 before
August 1st
Save the date: watch live stream, join
local events by MSDN Belux
Win a ticket today at Communiday Day!
• Take a picture wearing the BUILD t-shirt.
• Tweet or blog the picture, link to www.buildwindows.com,
use tag #bldwin and #comdaybe
• Wear the t-shirt and be there for the closing prize draw
http://www.buildwindows.com/

3. Patrick Sledz
GSM: +32 (0)475 330.003
Email: Patrick@officeandbusiness.be
Twitter: @patman2520
Blog: www.officeandbusiness.be

4. Quick Poll
Raise your hand if you are :
• A developer
• An IT PRO
• Project Manager
• None of the above

5. Agenda
• SharePain
• A different approach to SharePoint
Governance
• Hashtag: #comdaybe

6. Acknowledgements

7. Why SharePoint

8. SharePain: The SharePoint project pain
• “They don’t know what they want!”
• “The requirements are too vague!”
• “If only they had listened to me”
• “Not another %$%$% meeting!”
• “I was never consulted”
• “This is ridiculous – it won’t work”
• “How am I supposed to estimate that?“
• “It was in the minutes – did you read it?”
• “Well if everyone actually followed the process…”
SharePain

9. A different
view on
governance

10. Context
Needed skills for SharePoint governance:
• Deep product knowledge and technical skills
• Deep understanding of the softer,
more human facets of SharePoint delivery
Guess which one do we suck at?

11. (SharePoint) Project pain…
• “They don’t know what they want!”
• “The requirements are too vague!”
• “If only they had listened to me”
• “Not another f#@%$ meeting!”
• “I was never consulted”
• “This is ridiculous – it won’t work”
• “How am I supposed to estimate that?“
• “It was in the minutes – did you read it?”
• “Well if everyone actually followed the process…”

12. SharePoint is cool

13. Why does it look like this?

14. F-laws
• “f-Laws are truths about organisations that we
might wish to deny or ignore – simple and
more reliable guides to everyday behaviour
than the complex truths proposed by
scientists, economists, sociologists, politicians
and philosophers”

15. F-Law 1
• THE MORE COMPREHENSIVE THE
DEFINITION OF “GOVERNANCE” IS,
THE LESS IT WILL BE UNDERSTOOD
BY ALL

16. Governance = to steer

17. Steer where?
Aspirational future state
Present state

18. Steer where?

19. Steer where?

20. Steer where?
MSFT
and
others

21. Steer where?
MSFT
and
others
This
session

22. Takeaways f-Law 1
• Governance is the means to an end
• Begin with the end in mind and try to achieve
this. This is governing
• Don’t over-define it to understand it

23. F-Law 2
• THERE IS NO POINT IN ASKING USERS
WHO DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY
WANT, TO SAY WHAT THEY WANT
PS. There is even less point in thinking that you already
know what they want

24. Knowing versus Learning

26. Knowing versus Learning

27. Knowing versus Learning

28. opportunity driven learning
• “The truth about Einstein is he didn't arrive at
his famous equation by complex mathematical
reasoning. In fact, he didn't use mathematical
or scientific reasoning at all!”

29. • “Einstein was intrigued by ‘holes’ in prevailing theories.
He enjoyed posing ‘mind riddles’ to himself, just to see
if present theories could satisfactorily explain them.
• Einstein refused to give up until he solved the riddle.
He didn't stay with this riddle for just a week or two, as
you or I might have done. He didn't even quit after a
year or two of racking his brain.
• He stuck with the riddle for...
• Joseph W. Graham

30. 10 full years!
E=MC²
1895 1905

31. Takeaways
• Expect fluid requirements
• Expect scope changes
• Involve stakeholders!
• Expect resistance and pullback
• Plan for prototyping
• Be adaptable
• Do not penalise people for their learning

33. F-Law 3
THE PROBABILITY OF PROJECT
SUCCESS IS INVERSELY PROPORTIONAL
TO THE TIME TAKEN TO COME UP
WITH A MEASURABLE KPI

34. What project is this?

35. What project is this?

36. What project is this?

37. Takeaways
If you cannot tell me the difference made by
implementing SharePoint, how can anyone else
know the difference?
Even if you can, how do you know that
everybody else sees it the same way as you?

39. F-Law 4
MOST STATED GOVERNANCE OBJECTIVES ARE
PLATITUDES – THEY SAY NOTHING BUT HIDE
BEHIND WORDS
PS. Most governance platitudes simply reflect
the broader project platitude

40. Governance objectives

41. A gold medal winner platitude
“The Montgomery Burns Award for Outstanding
Achievement in the Field of Excellence"

42. If you cannot reasonably disagree with an
objective, or measure it, then it is a platitude
“Most corporate mission statements are worthless.
They often formulate necessities as objectives; for
example, "to achieve sufficient profit." This is like a
person saying his mission is to breathe sufficiently.”
Russell Ackoff

43. SharePoint platitudes
“Collaboration will be encouraged”
“To provide an effective collaborative
experience for our users”
“Deliver a best-practice collaboration platform”
“We are striving for operational excellence”
“It’s a SharePoint project”

44. Disneyland for Platitudes

45. Disneyland for Platitudes

46. Disneyland for Platitudes

47. Disneyland for Platitudes

48. Disneyland for Platitudes

49. Divergence – Multiple Future states

50. Platitude tests
“Our mission is to conduct all of our businesses,
both energy and financial related, with four key
values in mind: respect, integrity,
communication and excellence. All business
dealings must be conducted in an environment
that is open and fair”.
Enron Mission statement. Yep, that Enron

51. Platitude tests
“To produce high-quality, low cost, easy to use
products that incorporate high technology for
the individual. We are proving that high
technology does not have to be intimidating for
noncomputer experts."
(former) Apple mission statement

52. non platitudes
We are proving that through better information
management, we can improve our customer
relationship and trust building without over-
burdening our staff”
It can be measured

53. non platitudes
“We grow the organization while reducing email
volumes and centralizing document storage”
It can be measured

54. non platitudes
“By building communities of practice, we prove
that we can reduce information overload and
allow our users to find the right expertise”
It can be measured

55. non platitudes
“By building communities of practice, we prove
that we can reduce information overload and
allow our users to find the right expertise”
It can be measured

56. F-Law 5
Confidence is the feeling you have until you
understand the problem

57. Divergence & convergence
Chaos
zone

58. SharePoint projects
Time

59. SharePoint Guy
(YOU)
Business

60. I(T) don’t see a tech problem

61. Functional fixedness

62. Different views. What is
the subject of this
picture? Or SHOULD be
the subject?

63. Why do (SharePoint) projects #FAIL?
• Lack of user input
• Incomplete requirements & specifications
• Changing requirements and assumptions
• Lack of executive support
•
•
ASS
Technology incompetence of
They make an
Lack or resources
out U ME
and
• Unrealistic expectations
• Unclear objectives
• Unrealistic timeframes
• New technology

64. Remember legacy, not scope (or cost)
1957-> 7 MIO Completed 1973
Delivery : 1963 cost $102 MIO

65. One “best practice” to rule them all
• Ensure a Share understanding of the problem
among ALL participant

66. SharePoint pitfalls
• Pursuing boiling the ocean
– Learning project versus knowing project
• Jump to the “how” before the “what”
– Technical implementation versus business value
– Fixed Action Pattern
• Paint with the same brush
– Generation Y think everyone want web 2.0
– Engineers think everybody needs wiki’s
– Record managers hate wiki’s and think everything needs to be
classified
– Marketing thinks everybody will use it if it looks sexy and
sparkles
– Some will never break the folder habit

67. SharePoint pitfalls
• Adaptive challenge
– People tend to see what they loose over what
they gain
– Y: represents whatever dysfunction exist now
– People love status quo.

68. Issue mapping

69. ISSUE MAPPING
demo

70. Benefits issue mapping
Simple, intuitive, adds clarity to discussion
 Limited short term memory means exploration of a complex problem
unaided is confusing and error prone
 All participants have an organised point of reference
 We have captured decision rationale and organisational memory!
Democratic - Acknowledges all contributions
 Disarms “truth by repetition”
 Disarms “grenade lobbing” (topic shift)
Takes the interpersonal “sting” out of supporting or objecting to
an idea
Faster - allows a group to develop shared understanding with
much less pain

71. Summing up
• SharePoint governance is a means to an end
• Achieving Shared understanding is mandatory
– Watch out for platitudes
– Don’t penalize people for their learning
• IBIS & Dialogue mapping are complimentary tools
– Help you to facilitate groups achieving shared
understanding with much less pain
– Great tool to deal with divergent stakeholders views

72. Feedbac
http://bit.ly/BetterPatman
k
Thank you