2. 10 Worst Practices for SharePoint Intranets
www.clearbox.co.uk
@sammarshall

3. Sam Marshall
Director of ClearBox Consulting
15 years intranet and digital workplace
Former global portal manager at Unilever
Benchmarked over 40 intranets
Comms, KM & IT background
sam@clearbox.co.uk
@sammarshall

4. ClearBoxConsulting
Intranet, SharePoint and digital workplace:
Strategy
Governance
Collaboration
Communities
Adoption
Training
Practical experience
Transparent
Vendor-neutral

5. A quick poll…

6. Its good to learn from your mistakes…
…but it’s a lot cheaper to learn from someone else’s

7. 10 worst practices for SharePoint

8. 1. Making it all about the Head Office

9. Making it all about the Head Office
Focusing on big deals, high- level strategy, SVPs
Giving everyone the same homepage
Confusing the head office location with its role

10. Home
London
Paris
Rome

11. Global
Rome
Global
Global
Paris
London

12. Global
Profile
Location = London
London

13. Global
Rome
Profile
Location = Rome

15. Screenshots courtesy of Unilever Plc

16. Personalised newsfeed stream
Screenshot courtesy of YaraInternational

17. 2. Promoting silence

18. “Internal communication is the process by which the bosses tell everyone what is happening, followed by a feedback stage where everyone can tell the bosses what is really happening.”
—Guy Browning

19. 2. Promoting Silence
Only letting Commsprofessionals write content
•Other people might say something wrong
Not letting employees talk about their concerns
•Or only asking every 2 years
Believing we can’t do it yet
•We don’t have SharePoint 2013 / Yammer

20. Screenshots courtesy of American Electric Power

21. Two way conversations…
Encourage leaders to join ‘normal’ discussions
Solve company problems openly
Blogs / News comments
•End posts with a question or an opinion
•‘Seed’ discussion responses
•Not every executive is cut out for blogging
•Consider ‘baton passing’ between execs
For more: www.clearbox.co.uk/executive-blogging-how-to-get-started/

22. Don’t ignore My Sites

23. The interface between
the individual and the
organisation
Individual context in a
virtual world
People > People >
Information an effective
search route
The value of Profiles & Activity Streams
Screenshot courtesy of Oakley/Sitrion

24. Role of Communities/Yammer Groups -SAFARIS
Sharea link. “Here is a link to the latest report on China Exports”
Aska question. “Has anyone encountered this problem before, and if so, how was it solved?”
Finda resource. “Looking for a specialist in retirement benefits
to help win a bid in Calgary.”
Answera post. “Here are links to three relevant capability
documents in the qualifications database.”
Recognizea colleague. “Thanks to @dpalmerfor hosting an
excellent planning session today.”
Inform about your activities. “Will be in the Philadelphia office
today; does anyone wish to meet?”
Suggest an idea. “Local office TV screens should display the
Latest news.”
Source: Deloitte

25. 3.Making it all talk

26. Things on an intranet home page
Things people want from an intranet
Message from CEO
Quarterly results
For sale & wanted
My own
documents
Bonus calculation
Rumours
Lunch menu
Expense forms
Photos of office party
Phone numbers
Pictures of SVPs
Stock price
Mission statement
Weather

27. 3. Making it all talk
Filling the homepage with news
Making people go some other place for:
•Expenses
•Room booking etc.
Not letting work get in the way:
•Finding people skills
•Collaboration

29. News
Interactive
Services

31. Who sponsors your SharePoint intranet?

32. Who leads your intranet?
Organisation Need
Intranet Flavour
Sponsor
Improve communication
2-way, same message for all
Communication
Comms Corp Affairs
Work effectively across silos
Collaboration
HR IT
Reduce operating costs
Services
Finance
"One Company" initiatives
Communication
Comms Corp Affairs
Improve Capability of a Function (e.g. Marketing, Sales, R&D)
Knowledge Management
Head of Function
Support flexible working
Digital Workplace
HR
See: www.clearbox.co.uk/what-flavour-is-your-intranet/

33. SharePoint
precious content
4. Hiding all the good stuff

34. Findwisesurvey 2012
75% said finding the right information critical to organization’s business goals and success

35. 14% said finding the right information was ‘very’ or ‘fairly’ easy
Findwisesurvey 2012

36. 4. Hiding all the good stuff
Structuring content by who provides it
Putting a big “search all” box on the main page
Keeping the best bits on your personal drive
•Email the whole department if a document ever changes

37. Why is finding SharePoint content so hard?

38. Why finding stuff is hard…
Lack of active search management
Takes dedicated resource
Content owners don’t care
Poorly structured content & page layout
Search is much harder than on the Web
•Fewer providers –more gaps
•Lots of similar hits
•Content in documents, not web pages
•Popularity doesn’t help

39. Should you delete most of your SharePoint content?

40. Finding information is a combination of approaches
Search
Subscription
Curation
Colleagues

41. Tips to improve search
Share analytics and failure-to-find with content owners
Put a feedback form on your results page
Use managed metadata, but mandate sparingly
Define synonyms
Use entity extraction and term store for words specific to your org
All department names
All your product names
Promote library-level searches

42. 5. No channel strategy

43. 5. No channel strategy
Overloading employees
•News announcement
•Email about the news article
•Manager cascade
•Yammer post
Treating SharePoint as a single channel
More: http://kilobox.net/2726

44. Why Social Networks are better than email
Low time tax.Every email comes with a cognitive load, to file, delete, reply, whereas ESN posts don't need this processing, reducing the overhead of message management.
They skip the pleasantries. Short messages are more appropriate. Compare to the paraphernalia of a dozen emails just to agree a meeting date.
Low-key feedback. “Likes” offer a less demanding way of interacting but still add value. Emails that just say "I agree" would be so tedious that people don’t bother.
Open audience. Emails have a "to" and cc field loaded with implications. ESNs just post to an audience, so people can participate without an explicit thought process about who to include.
Ambient awareness. There's less expectation on any individual to participate, and no accumulating inbox, so it's OK to miss some posts.
Social profiles. People data is usually richer than the "from" field in email, so you have a stronger sense of contributor context.
Persistence. It's much easier to go back to an old thread and resume the conversation than it is to pull out an old email.
www.clearbox.co.uk/?p=2828

45. 6. Confusing communication & collaboration

46. SharePoint Pyramid
Team collaboration
Team or Wiki site
Teams
My Site, OneDrive
C:Drive
Personal
Group Intranet
Publishing site
Every-
one
Department Site
Team or Publishing Site
Peers
Communicating
Collaborating

47. Team collaboration
Team site
Teams
Personal
Group Intranet
Publishing site
Every-
one
Department Site
Team or Publishing Site
Peers
Collaboratingor Communicating?
X
X
X
X
X
X
?
?
?
?
My Site, OneDrive
C:Drive

48. 6b. Planning SharePoint in isolation
hours
days
weeks
years
months
suitability
Phone IM
Video / Web Conf/ Lync
duration of collab.
Yammer / Chatter / Tibbretc.
Doc Management
email
Team sites
mins.
?

49. 7. Too little governance

50. Governance Survey
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Governance is important
We have well defined governance
http://www.slideshare.net/echo4sharepoint/sharepoint-governance-maturity-benchmark-infographic
% agree

51. 7. Too little governance
Random inconsistencies
Team site sprawl
Graveyard sites
Only technical governance –defend the platform at all costs!

52. “Good governance is like having good brakes on a car, they make it safer to go faster” --Ralph O’Brien

53. “No you can’t use rotating gif images on your homepage”

54. 71/2. Too much governance

55. You onlyneed a 200 page governance document if you plan to hit somebody with it as a means of enforcement

57. Balanced governance
People
Policy
Templates
Monitoring
Training
•Governance is about the day-to-day realization of your strategy
•Governance is about changing behaviour

58. Creating intranet content guide
Free download:
www.clearbox.co.uk/intranet_content/
10 sections on:
•Headlines
•Images
•Page layout
•Social content
•Mobile content

59. 8. Excluding half your workforce

60. 8. Excluding half your workforce
Not worrying about factory people
Not worrying about mobile workers
Locking out partners and contractors

63. Hubbit

64. 9. Only planning the launch

65. A quick poll…

66. Adoption team
IT team

67. Only a fraction of SharePoint gets used
62% of organisations disillusioned with ROI from their SharePoint intranets
--MandoGroup survey 2014

68. “Our new intranet based on SharePoint 2007 will help us connect, communicate and collaborate more effectively.
It will help us share knowledge, find information and break down silos”

69. “Our new intranet based on SharePoint 20072013will help us connect, communicate and collaborate more effectively.
It will help us share knowledge, find information and break down silos”

70. 3 Things that are hard to kill

71. Harmon.ie example

72. 9. Post-launch planning
SharePoint intranets are like launching a magazine, not a book
Don’t think ‘project’ think ‘service’
Have a CoEthat provides internal consultancy, implementation and support
Budget for future customizations and add-ons
For more see: www.clearbox.co.uk/what-to-do-after-the-launch-of-your-intranet-part-1/

73. 10. No strategy

74. SharePoint is like a Swiss army knife...

75. ...but if only it was that simple

76. Users should experience SharePoint as something configured to their specific needs

77. Capability
Benefit
Outcome
Strategic Goals
Feature
“One” Organisation
Single identity
All employees see same msg.
Corp-Wide Comms
News Hub
2-way comms
Employee engagement
Community discussions
Less churn
Customer satisfaction
Time savings
Response times faster
Fewer outages
Better stock control
SAP Dashboard
Quicker access to data
Single place to collaborate
Flexible project resourcing
Best people on a task
Team Sites
Benefits mapping

78. A good SharePoint strategy…
•Sets out how SharePoint supports the organisation’sstrategy
•Is responsive to changes in business need
•Has clear, time-bound milestones
•Addresses people and behaviour issues

79. 10 Worst Practices
1.Making it all about head office
2.Promoting silence
3.Making it all talk
4.Hiding all the good stuff
5.No channel strategy
6.Confusing communication with collaboration
7.Too much / too little governance
8.Excluding half your workforce
9.Only planning the launch
10.No strategy

80. If you have been affected by any of these issues…

81. Intranet, SharePoint & Digital Workplace
Strategy
Governance
Implementation
Collaboration
Training
www.clearbox.co.uk
Sam Marshall
Director
sam@clearbox.co.uk
+44 1244 458746