These are my notes from Chapter 1 of Essential SharePoint 2007. I have read a few more chapters that I haven’t summarized yet, but so far I highly recommend this book!
Organizational acceptance factors
MOSS users typically have other options for accomplishing the tasks that MOSS enables. That is a threat to the organization adopting/embracing SP.
Process and people strategies are more important to successful deployment than the technology. It isn‘t logical, but it’s true. Planning those strategies are important to success.
SharePoint learning curve – Introduce features slowly. You could have rapid development with multiple releases (For example, your first rollout would launch a home page, executive dashboard, and one “collection” of content, such as HR.)
Getting business user buy-in: show value
Sell SP to users – tell them what’s in it for them.
What are the critical business objectives for the key stakeholders? How can MOSS address them? It’s easy for techie types to get caught up in all the cool things SharePoint is, but ultimately it is just another tool. Focus on delivering actual business value.
Tie the specific objectives of MOSS to one or more of the strategic objectives of the company. I can’t emphasize enough how much business users will love this.
The book lists examples of specific objectives that could be tied into the company’s strategic objectives. (I only typed out the ones that were relevant to my situation.)
- - Provide easier and timelier access to the information employees need to get their work done
- - Provide an organized one-stop shop for information by making it easier to find authoritative information
- - Improve the ability to share and exchange informationa cross the organization by providing an electronic publishing method that is easy for users to leverage
- - Improve the ‘time to talent’ the speed with which new employees become productive
- - Improve organizational learning by providing easier access to critical information and organizational memory
- - Improve project execution by providing an opportunity for work teams to collaborate and to electronically store project information in fully searchable, organized team sites
Articulate the long-term vision of your solution.
Content must be relevant to your user’s daily activities.
Personalization will make the intranet more valuable to users. (Audience targeting and content change alerts are the first two personalization features I would want to deploy.)
Roles & responsibilities for managing content
Make sure you have governance processes in place. Users should be aware of and accept their roles and responsibilities.
You need a plan for reviewing site content to keep it relevant over time. Consider using publishing sites because they allow you to schedule when content will be live, and you can set up a workflow to delete or retain expired content.
MOSS is only as good as the quality, timeliness and relevance of the content and data. Those are largely business user responsibilities, so it’s important to make sure the business stakeholders are engaged.
If possible, get content management responsibilities incorproated into individual performance goals.
Levels of Review and Approval
For each type of content, decide how much review and approval it needs before going live. For example, HR content or company polices would require a more formal review/approval process. (Who can submit changes? Who can approve those changes?) An in-progress project team site might have an informal or non-existent review/approval process.
Content Migration
- - Create strategy for converting existing content and launching the new solution.
- - Evaluate the value of existing intranet content and clean it up before migration.
- - Consider adopting a “no automated content migration” policy. Users have incentive to only migrate content that is still valid and useful. Bonus: The process of migration will ensure users learn how to use MOSS.
- - Users should be tagging metadata on existing content as they migrate it.
- - A contact person should be identified on every page – can use “Contact Details web part”
Make SharePoint the easiest way to find content
- - Create a logical and organized content taxonomy. Content classification strategy needs to support navigation and browsing! A good taxonomy guides users to what they are looking for without having to search.
- - Monitor search results to find and fix user stumbling blocks
- - Use search keywords/synonyms
- - Monitor usability with user focus groups
- - Conduct focus groups and usability tests – ease of use and logical content positioning
- - Ensure content creators/owners provide enough meta data and description… but balance the burden of entering that info with the importance of people finding it.
Preparing for the launch…
Communication surrounding Rollout:
- - Use newsletters, business unit meetings, demo it
- - Draft an email for your CEO to send out right before you launch – makes users get over reluctance to try something new
- - Tailor messages to specific target audiences
- - A fun activity – such as an intranet scavenger hunt (find answers to 10 questions)
Training
- - Identify initial candidates to become ‘power users’ of MOSS
- - Timing is important – train immediately before the launch.
- - Visitors will need minimal training – how to browse and search, site organization
- - Contributors need more significant training – posting content, applying metadata, etc.
- - Helpdesk may need training to assist users with SharePoint tasks
- - Owners would need even more training, but for now I’m the only owner.
After Roll-Out
Measure success – use usage statistics, solicit user feedback (ex: rapidly accessing previously hard to find information) and include quantitative value estimate (ex: took 5 seconds instead of 15 minutes)
Consider lunch & learn sessions on a weekly basis after launch.
Conduct periodic end-user surveys for continual improvement.
Encouraging good citizenship/participation
- - Make sure authors are credited, by Marla, updated by Bob, updated by Roger
- - Recognize content contributors or put MOSS success stories in the company newsletter
