X-ref Paul Culmsee’s book: “The Heretic’s Guide to Best Practices”Best practices are highly contextual – but these are some that we’ve found to work from our experience.Worst practices, on the other hand, are much more consistent in being appetites for failure.
Second Wave – not the enthusiasm of the first, just trying to get their job done. (x-ref Michael Sampson’s books)
SharePoint 2010 can be compared to a functional “firehose”, having grown from a simple tool for team documents and dashboards in 2001, to the rich multifunctional environment of SharePoint 2010. (BI! Workflow! Social computing! Data integration! Etc.) And if you can’t push on a rope, as they say, you really can’t push a firehose – users need to pull it in. This presentation is based on our clients, people in the middle of SharePoint adoption, who passionately shared their stories about the major enablers and roadblocks to SharePoint adoption.
CFM ROI: e.g. online collaboration reduces travel costsimportance of responsive, qualitative system performance for users to sustain enthusiasm.Rapid development and deployment of user-oriented solutions
CFMSpeed to market -- boil the ocean approach to solving too many problemsOver-governance: (e.g. too hard to get sites)Maintenance: Redundancy of content -- Documents duplicated in file systems and multiple sites – lack of operational governance and user guidanceField of Dreams– if you build it they will come.
[MG]Lunch Application –KMA clients use lunch or catering order application on SharePoint. Users seem to really emotionally bond to these solutions – it’s fun & essential and replaces slower, manual processes.Dynamic Content on Home Page – Offering a fresh cycle of new information on the home page is thought to be equally or more important to clean attractive design.Birthday List – another example of fun, unique and essential information that bonds users with the siteFind that first one! Think horizontal.
[MG]Lunch Application –KMA clients use lunch or catering order application on SharePoint. Users seem to really emotionally bond to these solutions – it’s fun & essential and replaces slower, manual processes.Dynamic Content on Home Page – Offering a fresh cycle of new information on the home page is thought to be equally or more important to clean attractive design.Birthday List – another example of fun, unique and essential information that bonds users with the siteFind that first one! Think horizontal.
[mg] Branding/Naming – In particular when companies are launching or relaunching a SharePoint based project, it helps to brand the project with the name of the site (e.g. “I’m using MyCompany” instead of “I’m using “SharePoint”.Marketing & Segmentation – it’s important to understand that the adoption message needs to be distinguished not only for different groups of business users (power users/casual users) but also different IT constituents (developers/server teams/analysts & PMs)
CFMMulti-generational: Different generations adopt technology differently. Different ages have different comfort levels with web technology (corporate sites vs. social networking) and platforms (PC or laptop or smartphone)Multi-national: global audiences have different preferences for platforms, tools, bandwidth and site performance expectationsMulti-platform: mobile enablement
[CFM] Survey – use SharePoint surveys to measure success and determine future directionsAdministrative Tools – measure what people are looking for
[mg] Departmental Approach – build success at a lower level first before tackling enterprise wide adoptionSteering Committee (Cross-Functional) – it helps when the project is accountable to a frequently meeting team of empowered business stakeholders drawn from multiple departments, not just IT and HR.Move Fast – quick early successes count more than long, late successes
[CFM] SharePoint -> SharePoint – use a SharePoint site itself to supply support to usersPrepare Support Teams – make sure Help Desks and customization teams are available and trained in advance to minimize the risk of failing to meet rising expectations.Self Service Support/Communities – some companies reports tremendous success using discussions, blogs, and wikis to help users help each otherTeam Leaders Support/Decentralized – Another approach is to decentralize support to power users or team captains in each logical group of usersTech Sheets – Quick one page tips or FAQs can be written and distributed to users and helps desk via email, web sites, print distribution or knowledge bases.
[cfm]Many users schedule a “big event” (usually a breakfast event in the morning, sometimes a lunch, rarely an evening happy hour) the day the site “launches”. In conjunction, these events often offer:TrainingContests and prizes, often with a scavenger huntPublic awardsGiveaways – branded coffee cups, mouse pads or wallet cards with tips and helpful informationResource: “Buzz kit” (2007) replaced by “I use SharePoint”Mother of Navy Seal Michael Murphy christening warship named for her son, posthumously awarded CMH for valor in Afghanistan, first to receive it since Vietnam War.
[mg] Douglas MacGregor @ MIT Sloan in 1960s developed thisSharePoint -> SharePoint – use a SharePoint site itself to supply support to usersPrepare Support Teams – make sure Help Desks and customization teams are available and trained in advance to minimize the risk of failing to meet rising expectations.Self Service Support/Communities – some companies reports tremendous success using discussions, blogs, and wikis to help users help each otherTeam Leaders Support/Decentralized – Another approach is to decentralize support to power users or team captains in each logical group of usersTech Sheets – Quick one page tips or FAQs can be written and distributed to users and helps desk via email, web sites, print distribution or knowledge bases.
Bonus: SharePoint Maturity Model. If you currently use SharePoint, use this model to baseline your maturity and adoption levels, benchmark them against similar companies, and track your progress over time.
[mg] This is one of my favorites. Usually, some senior person complains they can never find anything on the "H drive". Since SharePoint offers a searchable web interface, it has to be better, right? Sure - except if you just dump all that content in without thinking, all you get is a SharePoint site with top level folders called "bobtest". "newtest", "newtest 2", and “sales1997”. Same problem, in a new shiny package. Likelihood of project death – 50%.
[cfm] Just because you can doesn’t mean you should, and without proper training, you will only confuse people, at least, until someone goes in and simplifies it. SharePoint is powerful, often complex. Entering at the pinnacle of complexity management is a surefire way to alienate early adopters. We’ve seen this multiple times, and the result is almost always the same. Likelihood of project death – 75%, (until someone new comes in to clean up the complexity.)
[mg] This one is pretty simple – how do you define success? If success equals a well-used site, then this virtually guarantees failure. Simply sending around an email announcing your new site doesn’t cut it. People learn differently, and many folks need multiple “touches” before they feel comfortable. Death rate – 75%