Viva Connections gives you the opportunity to bring your modern, intelligent intranet into the apps and devices your employees already use every day – like Microsoft Teams. But have you planned your intranet with governance in mind? What are the best ways to get started and to ensure that your intranet – delivered in Teams or in the browser – provides a sustainable, useful, and usable experience for everyone in the organization? This session will help you plan and deliver a governance framework for your intranet in Viva Connections – with practical advice, tips and best practices, and content to help you get started!

1. rencore.com
Susan Hanley
Session 1
Governance Planning
for Viva Connections
Best Practices for Intranet
Governance

2. Typical Intranet Governance Plan

6. Governance needs to be consumable to get …

7. 8
Understand what your end state goal really is!
… business
results!

8. Governance
on its own
is not
enough
GOVERNANCE
TRAINING
USER ADOPTION

11. Governance is about balance

12. No sharp edges!

13. Governance should be one of the
first things you think about when you
are envisioning your intranet …

14. … and Viva Connections governance
needs to be considered in the
context of the overall governance
for Microsoft 365

15. Plan, create, deliver

16. Plan –
understand
what needs to
be governed

17. Intranet
governance
topics
Vision
Policies and guidelines
Provisioning and decommissioning
Information architecture and search
Content management
Branding
Security and information life-cycle management
Roles and responsibilities
Feedback
User training
Measurement, monitoring, and change management

18. Governance doesn’t have to be one size fits all

19. Governance based on reach
Home Site
Functional Portals
and Hubs
Divisional/Regional Portals
and Hubs
Topic-specific Microsites
Organizational
News Sites

20. 21
Put
together
the right
team –
small,
inclusive,
Put together the
right team:
small, inclusive,
empowered

21. “If you can’t
feed a team
with two pizzas,
it’s too large.”
Jeff Bezos, Founder of Amazon

22. Schedule meetings to work through governance decisions
Use this workbook to review and document the key questions and decisions that you need to
discuss!
http://tiny.cc/M365GovQuestions

23. What’s in the workbook? ▪ Suggested meeting
schedule and participants
▪ Questions organized by
topic
▪ Links to resources where
you can learn more
▪ Place to record the
decision
▪ Place to record where
users will learn about the
decision, how to apply it,
and where it matters

25. Viva
Connections
governance
adds some
new
questions
and
decisions
What audiences do we need?
Who manages the creation of audiences?
How will audiences be maintained?
Who can create an app?
Who decides which apps and content can/should
be targeted to which users?

26. What does your content smell like?

27. Metrics and
monitoring is key
to governance

28. Measure what matters | system metrics
Most engagement
(comments and likes)
Most viewed pages and
documents
Date last updated for
documents and pages
Access by location,
role, device
Search terms with no
results
Conversation insights
in Yammer
(impressions, views,
click-through,
reactions)
Q&A trends within
and across
communities
Sites without owners
or usage

29. Measure what matters | business metrics
Improve business
performance/key tasks
Reduce “time to
talent” (onboarding)
Find new ways to
create value
Increase client and
employee satisfaction
Reduce time
to decision
Improve re-use, don’t
“re-invent the wheel”
Predictable quality
& effort
Retain knowledge as
staff leaves/retires

30. Monitoring tools
and approaches
▪ Site designs and follow
up
▪ Review prior to creation
▪ Use automation
▪ Leverage site analytics
▪ Leverage third-party
tools
▪ Provide coaching and
support for site owners

31. Equip your employees with the
know-how and confidence
they need to be successful

32. Invest in training …
▪ Make it easy to do the right thing
▪ Create page templates and embed links to training in the templates
▪ Use site designs and templates
▪ Create a library of examples, guidelines, and standards – ideally, in a User Resource
Center for Microsoft 365. Want to learn how? http://tiny.cc/SPGovStepbyStep
▪ Take advantage of the Microsoft 365 Learning Pathways – brings Microsoft training
to you inside your tenant https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/office365/customlearning/
▪ Help site owners plan awesome communication sites
▪ Plan your SharePoint communication site https://support.microsoft.com/en-
us/office/plan-your-sharepoint-communication-site-35d9adfe-d5cc-462f-a63a-
bae7f2529182?ui=en-us&rs=en-us&ad=us
▪ Communication site planning guide http://tiny.cc/CommSitePlanningGuide

33. … and a Champions
community

34. Create the
content

35. Governance
content
includes …
• Build into site designs
• Automate with settings the Admin Center
Policies
• Automate validation where possible
• Support with training
• Remind in context
Guidelines
• Add to job descriptions
• Align with training
• Review regularly
Roles and Responsibilities

36. Roles and
Responsibilities
▪ Should be part of job
descriptions and
performance goals
▪ Make it easy for people
to learn about a role
before they commit
▪ Not every role is full
time; not every role
needs to be done by a
different person

37. Align
permissions
with training

38. Deliver when
and where
people need
the
information

39. Demo

40. The User
Resource
Center
▪ Training and governance content
in one place
▪ Content grouped by “topic,”
“service,” and role – to encourage
adoption
▪ Connected to Microsoft Learning
Pathways for training (or start with
Learning Pathways and embed
content in playlists)
▪ Embed your Yammer community
for M365 Champions
▪ Use news or highlighted content
to promote new content

41. How is it created?
•
•
•
•

42. Do it yourself!
▪ Create the Site Columns you will use to organize content.
▪ Add the Site Columns that align with your goals – Page Type, Help Topic, User
Role, App. Add the columns in “data entry” order. (Site columns, not list
columns!)
▪ Create a page template and create pages.
▪ Assign metadata to pages.
▪ Connect related pages with Highlighted Content and inline links.
▪ Embed or link to training from Learning Pathways (and add links to URC pages
in Learning Pathways).
▪ Curate learning experiences for key roles.
▪ Configure the home page.
▪ Integrate just-in-time delivery
▪ Detailed instructions and sample content: http://tiny.cc/SPGovStepbyStep

43. Site Columns (use managed metadata or Choice)
These are examples of Topics.
You may have more or fewer.
Try to keep the number of
options to fewer than 20.

44. Deliver Just-in-Time | Custom help and app
Add a custom app to the app
launcher
Add a custom help link
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-
365/admin/manage/customize-the-app-launcher
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-US/microsoft-
365/admin/misc/customize-help-desk

45. Deliver Just-in-Time | Teams content in templates
▪ Bring your Teams
content into each
Team

46. Deliver Just-in-Time | Microsoft 365 learning pathways
▪ Integrate governance content
on playlist pages
▪ Add specific pages in
individual playlists

47. Deliver Just-in-Time | Viva Connections!
▪ Add to global navigation
in Viva Connections

48. Talk about it! Communicate and promote!

49. Key Take-aways
▪ Governance is key to intranet success – and
Viva Connections!
▪ Plan governance first – in the context of your
business outcomes and environment
▪ Include a plan to measure and monitor
▪ Consider roles and responsibilities – and
aligning with job descriptions
▪ Engage your champions and include training
▪ Don’t deliver as a doorstop document – deliver
just-in-time
▪ Promote, promote, promote!

50. Susan Hanley
susanhanley
www.computerworld.com/blog/essential-sharepoint
www.susanhanley.com
sue@susanhanley.com
• Information Architecture
• User Adoption
• Governance
• Metrics
• Knowledge Management
• Intranets & Collaboration
Solutions

51. Thank you!