Session8 Collaboration B08 Michael Sampson

Collaboration in SharePoint: Bringing It All Together
Michael Sampson
www.michaelsampson.net

Michael Sampson
Improving the Performance of Distributed Teams
Blog
Reports and Articles
Two books on SharePoint, “Seamless Teamwork” and “SharePoint Roadmap for Collaboration”
Invited Conference Speaker
Consultant, Analyst, Workshop Leader

Agenda
“Why did you write Seamless Teamwork?”
“What are the key messages in your book?”
“How can Seamless Teamwork help our firm?”
“What do we need to do next?”

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Why I Wrote Seamless Teamwork
Gives business people a picture of how they could coherently use SharePoint in their work
Talks about SharePoint in terms of business work, not technology features
1

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Why I Wrote Seamless Teamwork
Gives business people a language for talking to IT about SharePoint and their work
Addresses the questions and considerations that people will face in using SharePoint for work
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Key Messages in Seamless Teamwork
People and process matter (hugely)
SharePoint has technical capability to help in lots of areas (if it’s used well)
Align SharePoint features to team stages
Eg, wiki for “emerging” content / consensus AND THEN documents for finalizing content

Once upon a time … in a land far, far away …

Meet Roger Lengel

… and Kelly Rollin(Roger’s boss)

Dear Roger,
You did great in yesterday’s meeting with Martin, Janet, Tommy, and Darren. This e-mail message is to confirm what was verbally discussed, that you are project lead on Project Delta. It is critical to the future of our company that you get this right, and we all have full confidence in you to do so. You wouldn’t have been tapped to do this otherwise.
A couple of pointers: You will need to assemble a team of people from across the firm to be involved, and given the emphasis of Project Delta on international expansion, I don’t need to remind you to pull in some good people from our overseas offices. The implication, of course, is that you’ll be leading a virtual team — you won’t be able to work in person with all of the people on the team, but you’ll still need to ensure that all of the work that gets done is done effectively.
Secondly, I think this is a great project for running through SharePoint. I have spoken to Gareth Chan in IT, and he will be setting up a new Project Delta site for you. Please make sure that you use SharePoint in the most effective way possible; it shouldn’t merely be a file repository.
Let me know if there’s anything I can do to assist. Happy to run interference for you where and if necessary.

“How do we run projects around here?”

The Five Phases Project Life Cycle
Understandingthe Options
Creating a SharedVision
Analyzingthe Options
Making aDecision
Concludingthe Project
All projects have unique AND generic aspects
Five Phases … a high-level generic process

SharePoint for Managing the Project
Recruitingthe ProjectTeam
Setting upthe Team’s Place in SharePoint
Introducing the Team to SharePoint

Recruiting the Project Team
Roger knows some people at Fourth Coffee
“I wonder who would be the best for this team?”
SharePoint My Site
My Profile – public-facing profile
My Home – personal-facing home site
People Search
My Site requires MOSS 2007

My Profile

People Search – For Internal People
Find someone you know
Search by Department
Search by Job Title
Search based on Skills

People Search – For External People
Ask people at your firm for referrals
Look at their Web site
Google their name
Follow their blog
Look who is speaking at conferences
Advanced tip:
Create a place in SharePoint for tracking external people (“dossier site”)

Pre-Conditions for My Site Success
People have filled out their profile!
Make your areas of expertise interesting, not generic
Be exhaustive and list everything
View your profile as your online resume
Be professional
Don’t be all business
Keep your profile up-to-date
Become a My Site champion!

Creating the Team’s Place
The three constituencies in any project
The project team
The project sponsors and stakeholders
Everyone else

Open access – everyone
Restricted access #1 – project team
Restricted access #2 – sponsors and stakeholders
Everyone Else
Project Team
Project Sponsors and Stakeholders
Visualise an Office Building

Open Access = “Everyone Else” site

Restricted Access #1 = Inner Team Site

Restricted Access #2 = Sponsors & Stakeholders

Template Standardisation(governance theme)
Minimize the number of diverging designs
Reduces cognitive load on users
Forms habits about “our way of working”
Encourages seamless use
Create a small set of templates for projects
Small projects, Medium and Large

“Team, Meet SharePoint”
Upfront questions when starting a project:
“Who are these other people that I’m working with?”
“How are we going to work together?”
“How will I know when other people want me to do something?”

Key Idea: Announcements to Coordinate Team Action
Create an announcement to say what the team needs to do next
Team members are alerted
They individually decide how and when to respond
Tasks? For “one person” delegations

“What’s Changed?”

Site 5
Site 4
Site 6
Site 3
Site 7
Site 2
Site 8
Site 1
Site 9

Email or RSS notifications to alert to changes
Site 5
Site 4
Site 6
Site 3
Site 7
Site 2
Site 8
Site 1
Site 9

Setting Up an Email Alert

Setting Up an RSS Alert

“Who am I working with?”
General and generic information:
In SharePoint, “My Profile”
Project-specific information:
Page in the team’s wiki

Wiki Page to Snapshot the Team

Controlled Release of Personal Details

When can we work together?
Multi-location, multi-time zone team
When can we expect others to be available?
When can we expect others to be working?

When can we work together?

How will we work together?
Shared mental picture of working together
Not in the same place
Eg,
Frequency of interaction
Speed of response
Dealing with disagreements

How will we work together?

Sharing the Contextual Details
Overcoming invisibility and inaudibility
“What’s going on for Laura in Edinburgh?”
The meetings she’s going to
Her travel schedule for the week
What she’s reading
Is there a good reason why she isn’t responding to my email today? (perhaps it’s a public holiday)

Sharing the Contextual Details

Creating a Shared Vision
Making aDecision

“What are we working towards?”
Common thought—“produced in common”
Three aspects of shared vision:
SharedVision
Delegated Vision
Contextual Vision
Personal Vision

“What are we working towards?”
Delegated VisionWhat the sponsors want
Contextual VisionWhat the stakeholders want
Personal VisionWIIFM?

Delegated Vision: Interview, Document

Contextual and Personal Vision
How to comprehend the Contextual Vision
How to document the Personal Vision

Personal Vision
“Why is this project meaningful to me?”
“What do I hope to get out of it?”
In SharePoint:
A personal place to note WIIFM
Can see it whenever I visit the team’s site

Personal Vision

Making aDecision
Understanding the Options

Understanding the Options
“What couldwe do?”
Aim is to secure a range of options
Prevents premature embrace of one option
Strategy: Brainstorming
Separates idea generation from idea evaluation
Creates a time/space to have ideas and share them

Brainstorming: Wiki Page
List the rules of brainstorming
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2
3
4

Seed the brainstorming page
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2
3
4

Signal that brainstorming rules apply
1
2
3
4

Announce the brainstorm “open”
1
2
3
4

Other Approaches
Brainstorming:
With OneNote 2007 (a shared notebook)
Via a conference call
Reviewing and consolidating the ideas

Making aDecision
Analyzing the Options

Analyzing the Options
“What could we realistically do?”
Explore the better ideas and options
Cull those that are too costly or risky
… or where the timing is off
Expand and analyze the good ideas
Aim is to get to a short list of 2-3 ideas

Create a Custom List to Track the Ideas
Use a SharePoint Custom List
For team coordination
Communicates ownership and status
Custom lists:
Huge range of flexibility to track things in a shared setting
Better than Excel 2007 or Access 2007

Coauthoring a Document
Option 1: Word 2007
Use a Content Type
Standardises the Word template

Coauthoring a Document
Option 2: SharePoint Wiki
Create a page for each idea
Follow a similar structure across ideas

Meetings When Apart
Five general purposes for meetings:
To transfer information … use other ways
To discuss and decide … conference call
To coordinate … use blog
To socialise … use blog or instant messaging
To get work done … use screen sharing
Time zone coordination? See the wiki

Meetings When Apart: Technology
Microsoft SharedView
Free for up to 15 participants
“Meet Now” only; can’t pre-schedule
No conference call number
Microsoft Live Meeting
Monthly service fee
Meet now and pre-scheduled
Bundles a conference call number

When should we meet in person?
Two general rules:
There is a lot of intensive work to do over a short time period
Lots of interactive conversation is required
Good times, for example:
At the start of the project (getting to know others)
Key decisions have to be made
2-3 people have intensive co-work to do

Making a Decision
Making aDecision

Making a Decision
“What should we do?”
Have to choose one option from the short-list
Approach:
Pre-work (read through the options)
Evaluate the starting positions … how much agreement or disagreement is there?

Assessing Commonality in Decision
Create a SharePoint survey
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2
3
4

Create the survey questions
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2
3
4

Invite responses through an Announcement
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2
3
4
Key messages to communicate:
It’s not the final decision
Design of the survey
Reminder to read the documents
Link to the survey page

Review the completed survey
1
2
3
4

Making a Decision: Method Options
Conference Call
High agreement
Shorter session to deal with formalities
Face-to-Face Meeting
High disagreement
2-3 day session
Location choice
Whole team or subset only?

Draft the Recommendation
The team has determined the best way forward
Now need to document that
Socialise the recommendation
Seek feedback on the recommendation
Revise the recommendation (as appropriate)

Other Tools and Capabilities
SharePoint Workflow … to gather feedback on a document in a standard way
No duplication of documents
Clear signaling of work to do

Concluding the Project
Making aDecision

Concluding the Project
“We Did It!”
Ending the formal work of the team
Recognition and celebration
Team debriefing
Personal vision … “go for it”

Update My Site with Project Details

Write a Blog Post about the Project
Write a blog post about the project in your My Site blog
The role you took
The names of the other people
The key outcomes
Key lessons about effective teamwork

Tidying Up the Inner Team Site
Publish final materials
Into the document management system
To the Intranet
Delete the transitory material
Get the Inner Team site archived
Disconnect Outlook, Groove or Colligo from the site
Update the Everyone Else site

… and they all lived happily ever after.

Agenda
“Why did you write Seamless Teamwork?”
“What are the key messages in your book?”
“How can Seamless Teamwork help our firm?”
“What do we need to do next?”

How Seamless Teamwork Helps You
Strengthens user adoption of SharePoint
Shows business people what’s possible and useful
Shortens your training activities for SharePoint
Gives examples of using SharePoint capabilities
Addresses common business user questions

Next Actions
Develop your internal user adoption strategy
Inhouse Seamless Teamwork workshop
www.seamlessteamwork.com
Order SharePoint Roadmap for Collaboration
www.sharepointroadmap.com
Inhouse SharePoint Roadmap workshop

Seamless Teamwork
How business teams can make the best use of SharePoint for collaboration
Published by Microsoft Press (2009)
www.seamlessteamwork.com

SharePoint Roadmap for Collaboration
Making SharePoint succeed at a business and human level
Published by The Michael Sampson Company (2009)
www.sharepointroadmap.com

The Michael Sampson Company
Improving the performance of distributed teams
michaelsampson.net
michael@michaelsampson.net

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