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SharePoint - building user adoption - 2015 - spsBoston
The presentation by Matthew Carter focuses on strategies for building user adoption of SharePoint, emphasizing the importance of understanding user needs, improving training, and gaining executive support. Key recommendations include addressing user pain points, providing targeted training materials, and encouraging communication between users and management. Overall, the approach aims to create value and enhance productivity for users considering or currently using SharePoint.
SharePoint - building user adoption - 2015 - spsBoston
- 1. Building User Adoption DiscussionAround Building Enthusiasm For SharePoint Twitter - #SPSBoston
- 2. Presenter: Matthew Carter •SharePoint Administrator / user since Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 • Member of the Boston Area SharePoint User’s Group - #BASPUG • @MLCarter1976 | Blog – http://www.WestportPoint.org/Blog • E-mail - MLCarter1976@Live.com • LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/pub/matthew-carter/7/640/459
- 3. What Is BuildingUser Adoption • Encouraging people to implement a product or a technology and then use it effectively • Creating value that explains the reasons why a product or a technology will benefit people’s productivity • Discovering “What’s in it for me”
- 4. Summary of thispresentation • Areas of improvement • Data is all over, unorganized • No training • Lack of training budget • “Train the Trainer” • How to fix it • Executive support • Listen to users • Meet and talk with them about difficulties • Look up search results and work on boosting ease of use
- 5. Areas of Improvement •Talk with users about what their pain points are • If thinking of using SharePoint, plan out why the product will aid them in doing their job • Is there a need to consolidate files together to collaborate? Is SharePoint the right tool for that? • How are users using files and working today? Is SharePoint going to solve that for them?
- 6. Data is allover • Users might ask “Where is my data?” • Is that file in e-mail, file server, My Desktop, database, etc.? • People might not know where data is and encouraging them to put it in one location might ease that pain
- 7. It’s not ALLin SharePoint • See if multiple locations could have data imported into SharePoint • Is the bulk of their files in e-mail or on a file server? • Able to import that in or part of it? • Small steps might seem small and yet, might be baby steps towards improved adoption. • Too much, too fast might be overwhelming – even if you think it would be best • Ensure that data going into SharePoint belongs there – it might not
- 8. Training is lacking •Business evolves rapidly and there are many demands to keep moving forward • Trying to find time to train is difficult • “Train The Trainer” - “Trickle Down Training” • Groups are trained and relay their experience with others • Excessive amount of information and ineffective at retaining all information • Often little or no budget for training • “We can worry about training later”
- 9. Encourage Executive Approval •Talk with Executives • Explain value in using SharePoint • Identify their business difficulties that SharePoint can possibly resolve • Executive approval can boost adoption • Managers and Executives see value in SharePoint and embolden support for it
- 10. Listen to workers •If thinking of using SharePoint • Talk with those who will consume SharePoint • Identify a need that SharePoint will fill • If currently using SharePoint • Distinguish what is working well and discover areas that necessitate amendments • Is SharePoint functioning the way it was originally designed to • Ascertain if it is being used effectively • Inquire if areas of usage might be enriched
- 11. Identify areas ofimprovement • Meet with users and identify areas that might be missing and work to improve it • Talk with business / site owners and ask what THEY want, how can YOU help THEM • This is THEIR product and THEY want it to be great (you do too) and if they're happy, often others are too
- 12. Be a leaderand a facilitator • Lead by example, show people what you are doing and what they could be doing on their own site – you are the example • Make time for people to avoid time wasted with repetitive questions and or lack of usage and willingness to use product • Sitting and assisting people can allow them to understand the product better and also allow you to understand how people might want to use the product
- 13. “I didn't knowthat!” • Users might not know that you can do something • Users often don’t seek out all the features of a product. • Share one or two features of the product with them. Meet and talk with them. • E-mail or post an announcement on the company website can provide an opportunity for conversations and understanding
- 14. Search for it •Search is often where people find information • Look at the web analytics to identify what users are looking for and where they are looking to go • Recognize how people are getting to their data • Put in Promoted Results or Best Bets to target search results to user data
- 15. Busy^3 • People arebusy and need to carve out time to learn • Hour long training, often only one time, is overwhelming and most people forget the information • Post via e-mail or on the company website or present short five minute videos on how to do one or two things • Provide snippets and small bits of information • "Quick Tips" on the company website, or via e-mail sent to people weekly on how to do one or two things can encourage people to use and remember that the product is there
- 16. Address different learningstyles • People learn differently • Videos can assist and allow you to say “I made a video on how to do that” – TechSmith Camtasia • Screenshots in a Microsoft Office Word document are helpful too “I need it quick” so they can just follow along with what you did and get it done fast – TechSmith Snagit • You don’t need to hold hands and or sit at each person’s desk, you can put this as time permits up via an Announcement, via links on e-mail or up in lunch room, etc.
- 17. Explain in simpleterms • Explain the product in terms that people can understand, like car parts • Associate certain ways of doing things with methods business uses or common tasks that people are familiar with. • Explain how a car is complex and that, like SharePoint, you use some of the parts, but not all, like the CD player, A/C, etc. • YouTube® - SharePoint® in Plain English - https://youtu.be/s12Jb5Z2xaE
- 18. “The Scroll” • Medievalhelpdesk with English subtitles • https://youtu.be/pQHX-SjgQvQ • Reminds me of the typewriter and e-mail • Before e-mail people used typewrites and converting them over was slow and challenging
- 19. Build User Adoption •Try to get executive support / encouragement • Have multiple short meetings with people for training • Create quick little video’s and or documents with screenshots that instruct people on how to use the product • Help those who want it • Work with those who see the value in it – hopefully they will encourage others • Look at web / search analytics • Where are people going and what are the most popular locations • Focus on those locations and on those individuals who are engaged in the product
- 20. SPS Boston 2015is made possible by our Sponsors
- 21. Thank you • Rememberto sign your evaluations and thank you for attending! • Matthew Carter - Twitter - @MLCarter1976 or via e-mail MLCarter1976@live.com for more information • This presentation – the slides • http://www.slideshare.net/MLCarter1976/share-point-building-user-adoption-2015-spsboston
Editor's Notes
- #3 Been using SharePoint since Systems Administrator / Network Administrator and SharePoint 2007 – MOSS (Microsoft Office SharePoint Server)
- #4 Identifying the areas within the product that will make their job easier. Why use it?
- #5 Identify areas that might benefit from data consolidation or organized in a system that can list their locations and explain what they do or why / how to use them. Training others might be the only budget available. Executives encourage others to solve business difficulties. Get to know what is working and why. Search can provide helpful guidelines for what people are looking for. Analytics and search features can direct people to their files quickly and easily.
- #6 Knowing what might be an issue for users is a great way to know how to provide resolutions. Planning and asking pointed questions about their business need and how SharePoint can fill that need encourages a smooth adoption and use of SharePoint. Talk about what might go into SharePoint and what might be best listed as a link to its location. Is SharePoint working well for them, is it designed to provide them with business success, has that success been identified?
- #7 When / if data is all over and people aren’t able to find data, they can go and ask others where things are instead. “I thought this was supposed to help us!” might be an excuse. Try not to fall for that trap. Frustrated users often point the finger, look at their massive inbox and you’ll know that they are throwing stones in glass houses!
- #8 Judge how your business is, if it’s all in folders and file shares, then can you pull it in, possibly. You need to be the best to make that call. Data could be in SQL, on a file server, in My Documents, etc. How can you get it into SharePoint and IS it BEST to be IN SharePoint? Maybe not. Multiple terabytes of data might not belong in a couple content databases!
- #9 Often the budget only allows for the software or hardware and nothing else. Training is a almost immediate line item removed when cost escalates. Users will get the training they need in five minutes and be able to master the product in no time! Habitually it seems that businesses feel that others can do the same job as a trained and experienced professional who has become proficient at their job. The knowledge customarily goes from “feature rich” to “Cliff Notes®” training where it’s “click and you’re done.” The person on the other end of the conversation has their mouth open thinking “what just happened” or “what nonsense is this?” Attention is given to the Executives who might not use the product as consistently as those knowledge workers who will be uploading documents daily and updating Enterprise Keywords and or using Views and searching for data.
- #10 Executives can drive user adoption by encouraging others to work collaboratively towards a common goal
- #11 Talk with the users who are having trouble Inquire subject matter experts / content owners what they feel people are searching for or how to improve it. Talking to people can be extremely informative and enlightening What you thought was how something was viewed might be different to others Put a simple “Issues with Search” question on the right of Search Results and have a simple InfoPath form asking for a single line of feedback “what were you looking for” and when people submit it, a workflow on the back end (SharePoint Designer) or Alert, will e-mail you or others and you can improve Search – Best Bets / Promoted Results
- #12 If available, talk with some users and get to know what is going on with their sites and or site collections. How are they using it and or why are they not using it or how are they enjoying their experience. Getting feedback can lead to good conversations that might expose a need for additional functionality that they didn’t know about or that you might be able to provide to them. Showing that you care might be enough to get people to stop and talk with you about their issues and you can understand from the user’s perspective what is working or needs improvements.
- #13 SharePoint is “a beast” and there is so much to it. To think that within an hour you might not have gone over many of the features is impressive. With a file share or e-mail, you can get done in about 5-10 minutes. That simplicity might be what people like. They say that they like it, but they want it extremely complex as they tell you what they want and you think “SharePoint can’t do that out of the box.”
- #15 Search is only as good as the users who put the data into it! Work to encourage Enterprise Keywords or metadata (Data About Data) – think a picture is worth a 1000 words Avoid duplicates and try to get Governance (ahhh I know!) (it’s really just structure and organization). Work with the users who are having trouble and see what they can do
- #16 Getting everyone in the same room might be near impossible without the CEO mandating it. Ensuring that people understand what the product is about, with it’s complex processes and features, it is no wonder that an hour is never enough to tell people about SharePoint and to confirm that people go away feeling empowered and confident in their newly educated ability to enhance job performance. Slow small, multiple meetings, or video’s or “Meet and Greet”
- #17 If available, spending time getting things to people will encourage them to learn. They have a lot going on and SharePoint is not their main focus, they also learn differently so someone might like a video, who another person might not have headphones or sound, and so a quick session of scrolling through screenshots seems splendid. Posting to the company Intranet is another way to get people to “see” content and to be told small simple things that might help them that they didn’t already know.
- #18 It maybe tough to realize that people just don’t like it. I like Microsoft Office Outlook, I do not like Lotus Notes, and that might be how people feel about SharePoint. Trying to get over that and around that, could help you or you could just say “OK” and try to work with them and their understanding that it’s not going to work for them or they’re not going to work with you on it. You might not be able to win them all over and if they aren’t interested you might do well to go work on others to convince them that they can be productive and possibly happy.
- #19 Some people just love to try not to change.
- #20 This is a summary of what the topic will be about so you can focus on this and see these again, the point is to have the message be repeated so it is remembered. Similar to being told a whole bunch of things and remembering one or two. Having the information repeated over and over again is helpful for future recall.