The document discusses why SharePoint projects often fail. It identifies key reasons as a lack of focus on people over technology, poor resources like experts claiming expertise beyond their skills, and a lack of clear vision and alignment in organizations. It emphasizes that SharePoint is about changing how people work, not just giving them new tools, and that successful implementations require understanding users and change management.

1. Why is SharePoint still so hard?
presentersPisarek
Michal names
month, day, year
SharePoint MVP
Founder Dynamic Owl Consulting

2. Slide Title
Introduction: Michal Pisarek
Founder of Dynamic Owl Consulting
Click to edit Master text styles
• Microsoft SharePoint MVP
Second level
Organizer of the Vancouverof presentation
» Third level
title
SharePoint Users Group
› Fourth level
presenters names
Blog: SharePointAnalyst HQ month, day, year
Contributing Author
International SharePoint Speaker

3. Slide Title Owl
Dynamic
Click to edit consulting services
SharePoint Master text styles
• Second level
Business focused
• Strategylevel
» Third & Roadmap
title of presentation
• › Fourth
Governance level
presenters names
• Change Management month, day, year
• Requirements Elicitation
• Intranets and Digital Workplaces

4. Slide Title Agenda
Today’s
SharePoint is less about technology and more about
people
Lack of resources
No vision or alignment = SharePoint failure
Lack of understanding about what a SharePoint project
really is

5. Slide Title Goals
Session
Communicate why Identify the different
Why involving Learn how not to get
knowing the end components of a
people is essential in screwed by
before you start with SharePoint
SharePoint projects SharePoint “experts”
SharePoint is crucial implementation

6. Why is SharePoint still so hard?
Shouldn’t it be easier by now…

7. Slide Title study shows…
A recent
Not seeing level of adoption expected
Users don’t like the SharePoint experience
Product is not meeting functional expectations
Users prefer other tools, such as emails
Not seeing the business value

8. Concentrate on people first, SharePoint second
“Don’t ask users what they want, they
don’t know what they want”
SharePoint IT Project Sponsor

9. Slide Title
Key Messages
As the technology Better technology will
becomes easier not always lead to Take a people first
SharePoint will become better adoption if no approach
a people problem one uses the tool

10. Slide Title
Technology is becoming easier than ever
Technology is
becoming easier to
deploy
Users are still having
issues with
SharePoint
No point running if
you cant even crawl

11. Slide Title
People first approach
You cant push features you
need to push solutions
Users don’t care about
SharePoint, they care about
solutions to their pressing
issues
People aren’t stupid. They need
a reason to change

12. What does the research say?

13. Slide Title you do with SharePoint?
What can

14. Slide Title
Adoption.
Of those that said SharePoint was not meeting business
expectations, 54% cited poor adoption as an issue, 51%
responded that users did not like the SharePoint
experience, 41% said that users prefer other tools such as
email, and 41% were simply not seeing business value.
Forrester: SharePoint Enters Its Awkward Teenage Years Feb 6th 2013

15. Slide Title
“SharePoint’s
greatest value comes from
addressing a range of scenarios,
not just collaboration on
documents.”
Forrester: SharePoint Enters Its Awkward Teenage Years Feb 6th 2013

16. Slide Title we do?
What can
Go back to basic business analysis techniques
Start with the low hanging fruit
Create solutions that match your users needs
Communicate what you are trying to do

17. Slide Title
Understand your business
Go out and talk to your
users
Use traditional
BA, IA, UX Techniques
Discuss business issues
first before cranking
out SharePoint

18. Slide Title
Low Hanging Fruit
Version History
Shared Calendars
Announcements
Alerts
Views

19. Slide Title
Don’t push features, create solutions
Talk to users in their
terms
Use their own
nomenclature
Don’t force something
into your organization
before you are ready

20. Lack of good SharePoint resources
“Of course I can do Infrastructure, Development and
Business Analysis! I have passed all my SharePoint
certifications”
The SharePoint Expert

21. Slide Title
Key Messages
The all in one A good
Good SharePoint Be careful of so-
SharePoint consulting
people are hard called SharePoint
person does not company will
to find “experts”
exist offer alternatives

22. Slide Title
An All-in-one SharePoint person is a fallacy
That person doesn’t exist
You wouldn’t expect a
doctor to be a dentist
and a neurosurgeon and
a plumber
Very different skills
needed

23. Slide Title
Be careful of so called SharePoint ‘experts’
SharePoint skills are gained
through doing – get
someone with experience
Be careful that 5 years of
experience means 5 years,
not 1 year X 5

24. Slide Titleconsulting company will…
A good
Focus on what you need, more than what you
want
Understand what your organization is ready for
Understand the internal roles and
responsibilities required for success
Communicate trade-offs and alternatives
Understand the constraints

25. Slide Title
Tips
Developers
• Should know the out of the box functions of SharePoint
• Don’t expect them to gather requirements
Infrastructure
• Jack of all trades is needed
• They really NEED to have practical SharePoint experience
Visual Designers
• Its not like a ‘normal’ CMS – you have to work within boundaries
• Less can be more with SharePoint for non public facing sites
Consultancies
• Don’t be fooled by system integrators pretending they are business analysts
• Their answer should always be “it depends, here are your options”

26. Slide Title
The SharePoint Community
One of the best way to see if
someone really knows what
they are talking about
Think of scientific papers –
they must be peer reviewed
There are lots of people that
know their stuff that aren’t
part of the community

27. Lack of Vision and Alignment

28. Slide Title
We don’t know what we want, but we
want SharePoint

29. Slide Title clear vision so important?
Why is a
What are you improving?
Why are you doing this?
How do you know when
it is improved?
Who cares that it is
improved?

30. Slide Title
What happens without a vision?
There is always too much to
do . . . you can’t determine
what to do now
No one really knows what
this SharePoint thing is . . .
lack of adoption
Everyone wants something
different . . . welcome to
politics

31. Slide Title
Who cares about alignment?
Where is this SharePoint thing going?
There may be alignment on the buzzwords but
not the actual purpose
• Collaboration, Social enterprise
Different perspectives
• Management views “social” as a way to cut down on
emails, End users views it as a way to leverage
expertise from a community of peers

32. Slide Title
How does this manifest itself?
We want everything!
• “Too much too soon” is a magnet
for problems
• The organization has to be ready
Jumping to the “how” before
the “what”
• SharePoint should not be a “tool looking for a problem”
• Lead requirements with all the features SharePoint has to offer

33. What does the research say?

34. Slide Title

35. Slide Title we do?
What can

36. Slide Title
Facilitation Technique
Cover Story
• Ask players to imagine the best-
case scenario
• Tell a story of their success as it
would appear on the cover of a
magazine
Why it works: This is an open-ended, creative-thinking exercise.
Commonalities reveal shared hopes and plants seeds for possibilities

37. Slide Title Mapping
Dialogue
Dialogue Mapping
• Tool: Compendium (free download)
• Facilitation process that creates a dialogue
map that captures comments as a
conversation unfolds
• It works with the non-linear way humans
really think, communicate, make decisions
• Icons: Questions, Ideas, Pros and Cons
Why it works: Each participant’s contributions are shown on the map, see
how comments relate to others, shifts the dynamic of the group into a
collaborative mode, increases shared understanding

38. SharePoint Strategy Framework
Slide Title
Vision
Click to edit Master text styles
“To attain and retain the best talent in the industry by providing an open workplace
that encourages sharing of ideas, collaboration and technical excellence”
• Second level Strategy
title of presentation
“Pioneer the use of social technologies within the company to become a connected
» Third level
organization that is always learning”
› Fourth level
Business Needs presenters names
month, day, year
Find employees with Lower the cost of Encourage
skills and interests sharing information communities of Codify corporate
that can help answer across the practice for idea knowledge
questions organization exchanges

39. Slide Title it down
Breaking
Key Outcomes
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Have 20% of all staff Implement 2
• Second level on one or
Improve the time to
members
Increase usage of
knowledge base
find experts (using
keywords) by 80%
» Third level
more communities of
practice
title of presentation
wikis across the
topics by the end of
organization by 500%
the year
› Fourth level
SharePoint Implementation Scope presenters names
month, day, year
Innovation Center Community of
User Profile Roll-out Wiki Pilot
Template Creation Practice Pilot

40. Lack of understanding about what is involved
“Let’s just install SharePoint and see what
happens. How bad could it be?”
The guy who left 2 years
ago before this mess

41. Slide Title
Key Messages
There's much more to Its not like other pieces Understand what is
SharePoint then simply of software that you involved and plan for
installing it have rolled out unknowns

42. Slide Title SharePoint isn’t enough
Installing
5 years ago we bet that it was…well it obviously
isn’t
You need to have a more detailed plan
The biggest issue isn’t the technology these days
like it used to be
You need to understand how people work, not
just give them tools they can use

43. Slide Title it like other pieces of software
Why isn’t
It’s invasive. It changes how people work
Users have options. They don’t need to use it
You are trying to change 30 years of behaviours.
People like emails and file shares
You are introducing radical concepts. Not
everyone thinks social is a good idea

44. Slide Titleinvolved?
What is
Strategy Vision Training Communication
Change Requirements User Information
Management Elicitation Experience Architecture
Governance Adoption Plan Communication

45. Slide Title we do?
What can
Understand the adoption curve of systems
Realize that you need more than good
technology to make this all work

46. Slide Title
The Adoption curve of systems
If you say that SharePoint
will solve all your issues
quickly you will fail
There is ALWAYS a loss of
productivity
It’s the number one reason
that executive support is
needed

47. Questions?

48. Content authoring
Wrap-up
(DEMO)

49. Slide Title contact details
Wrap-up:
Michal Pisarek (Vancouver)
E: Michal@dynamicowl.com
T: @michalpisarek
W: dynamicowl.com