Curiosity Conquers Control
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How did the Wintec Information Technology Services Team manage to embed SharePoint as a critical infrastructure within a complex organisation? Find out how our simple philosophy of ‘getting out of the way’ is changing the game at Wintec, for both our customers and ourselves. Learn how our unique approach is simultaneously improving our organisation and providing value and benefit to the people who use it every day. See examples of what has been done and hear from the people who have done it!
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Curiosity Conquers Control
Editor's Notes
- Hello my name is Kristi Bernards and when I first gave this presentation I was the Technology Concierge at Wintec Wintec is a Polytechnic in the Waikato, which is in New Zealand A polytechnic in an institution of higher education offering courses in degree level and below, especially in vocational subjects Wintec have 20,000 Students 800 Staff members And 6 campuses in the greater Waikato region In the Information Technology Department (or ITS) there are about 30 of us And this is a case study is about how we (the Wintec ITS team) used curiosity as an adoption method for our new staff intranet
- In 2012 staff at Wintec had a dream They dreamed of an intranet where they could find what they needed. They dreamed of an intranet where the content was up to date & relevant. Our Internal communications team came to ITS and asked for something new. They wanted a better way to communicate. We surveyed our staff via focus groups to find out what they wanted out of a new staff intranet. Common themes were: -we want a wintec google -we want to find the information we need -we want the information to be up to date and relevant -we want to update the content ourselves
- Now what we did have was a problem - the current intranet was out of date There was lots of old content and search was not producing results Yet our organisation was wanting to put more information online All the staff intranet content updates were done through the web team of 4 people who were part of the ITS department But what real VALUE were they providing to Wintec by updating pages of information that no one could find
- We needed something new After promotion of SharePoint capabilities to the business, we decided to develop our new staff intranet on SharePoint 2010. It made sense for us to use this platform (It was low cost, as we get great discounts with Microsoft as a tertiary provider) and it ticked all the boxes according to our focus group results.
- So we create our new staff using SharePoint the way that James Robertson tells us us NOT to do. By department. There were a couple of reasons for this: firstly it was because we didn’t know any better and secondly it was because we were using SharePoint. And SharePoint has this idea of team sites and we can easily give or restrict a person’s (or a group of people’s) access to a team site. And the reason we wanted to do that is because we had a cunning plan – we were going to give our organisation what it wanted. We were going to give control of our staff intranet to the people.
- We Nominated “staff intranet custodians”. These custodians were going to own and update their staff intranet content. They were volunteers. There were one or two per area. I simply went around to each department and asked “Who wants to learn how to make web pages and stuff?” It was usually admin person or technology enthusiast. Initially we ended up with about 40 custodians from around the organisation.
- And we gave them FULL CONTROL to do anything in their sites. Now our ITS department see ourselves as “the gateway” rather than “the gatekeepers” of technology. We want to empower our community to use the technology that we have provided them to the fullest extent! We partner with our business, we supply the technology then work with our people to get the best out of what we have provided. We coach and facilitate their learning and gave them confidence to experiment. But it changes the game – rather than administering permissions (tedious and boring and could last all day) We free ourselves up to do more value added work – plus more challenging work (we have to be prepared to trouble shoot & fix someone else’s mistake) We have also had someone delete their entire site by mistake! But it was ok! We restored it and they will never do that again! So it is risk – but is one that we manage.
- This idea was something new for people to get their heads around. There were even some of us in ITS that did not agree at first. We had to convince the internal communications people. Who were worried about giving staff access to create content. What if they say the wrong thing?! However we managed to talk them into trusting our dedicated custodians to update content. Then we partnered with the internal communications team to provide workshops for our custodians. The internal communications team provided the “content guidelines” (aka what to put on the staff intranet) and ITS provided the “how to use the technology” stuff. We taught them how to: Create pages & content Add document libraries and lists Manage their site permissions We set up site templates to get the started They were then responsible for creating the content in the new staff intranet sites, referring back to the current staff intranet and recreating content on the new staff intranet. Our newly appointment custodians needed lots of support. They were my new best friends – calling me every day – so it was important that someone was dedicated to helping them. SO it wasn’t easy, it took lots of work. It took about 5 months.
- But eventually it was done. And at the end of 2012 we went LIVE and we had a grand opening with lots of staff attending and it was a happy day at Wintec! We had been building some buzz about this new intranet & how it was going to give everyone everything they asked for. So they were keen to check it out 170 staff came from our 5 campuses. Now that was more than our CEO had ever had at any of his presentations. I’m not sure the free pizza was the only reason they came.
- And we launched it And this was the first SharePoint staff intranet Now it was a pretty ugly baby… But it was our ugly baby. It was about capability not beauty.
- But you know what?! It didn’t matter that it was ugly Staff were using the new staff intranet – and it was better than before. They didn’t need training, they just turned up at work and started using it. We told people it was not perfect and we asked for their feedback & they gave it to us and we tweaked and improved and kept everyone updated about what was going on
- One of the great features in SharePoint is the ability to create custom lists, forms and workflows. And we had worked with our custodians to create a few automated service requests. There was a fleet vehicle booking form: enter name, destination, dates etc. The details would go to the Facilities team to process. Staff could also Reserve visitor car park Order business cards Apply for a parking permit etc Online, via the staff intranet and they loved it. And that is how we achieved user adoption to our masses – by stealth!!! Our community didn’t even initially know they were using SharePoint (except our custodians). They just knew they had to go there to get help or to get the form they needed or to get stuff. And it worked
- Now, that was not the end of the journey. We had only gotten started. For our staff custodians – we kept up training & moved into new territory. Custom lists, workflows, audiences, sub-sites, we kept going. And more and more people started asking about this new platform and how they could also use it and so ITS showed them. ITS started a SharePoint user group and met with anyone that was interested – and ITS taught them how to do stuff & gave them play spaces to use and then their custodians gave them access to their team sites and they made real solutions and used them. And sometimes we helped and answered questions and we worked along side our business enabling them to help themselves. In 2013 Wintec migrated to Office 365 and adoption increased. People had been introduced to the concept of using this online space (team site) to collaborate, share, track to make every day work life easier and they loved it. Now of course these people in the photo look like they are pretty excited about something on that computer screen– but you might have guessed – they are not actually real Wintec people. And I did promise that you would hear from some real people and I will tell you about some of the stuff they actually did.
- So here we go. Before I start the videos, apologies for the quality of sound and the movement. They are only taken with my iPhone. This is Stuart. Stuart likes long walks on the beach… Stuart runs our Events team at Wintec. Wintec have a number of event venues.
- Stuart has created his own custom calendars in SharePoint. They keep all information related to their business in their team site. Their team use calendars and tasks to manage their day to day work.
- This is Sara. Sara works as part of the Student Enrolment and Information Centre at Wintec. She is a normal lady who is using Sharepoint to revolutionize her department.
- Providing information to schools for the enrolment process; tracking the enrolment set up for each school/programme. Forms for module enrolments for each school/programme. Capturing requests from schools to have results locked and processed at the end of each programme. & tracking processing. Providing information for graduation & managing and tracking for graduation. So when Sara says SharePoint has revolutionised their processes, she is not kidding!
- This is Kazlo.
- Wintec have an internal Short Course application form & process in SharePoint. Entire Internal Short Course Application Process Information Forms and Checklists Approval Process
- This is Raelene. From the Quality and Academic Unit.
- They actively use their team site to manage everything they do. Sub sites for specialist areas, Track actions Manage projects Provide critical business information to the Faculty Sub sites for each schools to provide support, guidance and to track action items. Total of 54 sub sites – we are very proud!
- This is Paddy.
- Paddy’s website
- This is Jane. Jane works in our Human Resources department.
- Here is the HR intranet site. Jane builds surveys and simple forms.
- we didn’t make anyone do anything. And our community came to us and wanted more. So we showed them a better way. And we showed them how to do it themselves! We don’t limit what our users can do We encourage our community to play and try stuff Our community are creating their own sites, libraries, lists and workflows – they are using it They are allowed to make mistakes – we don’t growl them We monitor and have conversations and educate We no longer have a team dedicated to maintaining content on our websites We are focused on higher value work, providing training, guidance, support and empowering our staff to use technology We have proven that curiosity conquers control!