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Summit 2013 - Practical SharePoint Information Architecture
This document provides an agenda for a SharePoint conference session presented by Ruven Gotz. The agenda covers a range of topics related to practical SharePoint information architecture, including: requirements gathering, introduction to mind mapping, the importance of metadata, business process mapping, governance and adoption strategies. It includes times for sessions, breaks and lunch. The agenda is detailed and extensive, spanning from 9:00am to 3:30pm.
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Summit 2013 - Practical SharePoint Information Architecture
- 1. Practical SharePoint InformationArchitecture Ruven Gotz – Director, Avanade
- 2. It’s all aboutme… Ruven Gotz Toronto @ruveng spinsiders.com/ruveng ruveng.gotz@avanade.com Intro - Animated London, UK Johannesburg, SA Sydney, AU
- 3. SHARE 2012 |3 Buy the Book (or Kindle): http://amzn.to/JnxlcC
- 4. Agenda for theday • Mini-Keynote (30 min) • Introduction (15 min) • Preparing for successful outcomes & Requirements gathering (30 min) • Coffee(15 min) • Introduction to Mind Mapping (30 min) • The Magic of Metadata (35 min) • Lunch (60 min) @12:00 • Catch-up (15 min) • Card Sorting & Wireframing (30 min) • Business process mapping (30 min) • Coffee (15 min) • Governance, Adoption & Training (30 min) • Wicked Problems & Dialogue Mapping (30 min) • Conclusion & wrap-up (15 min)
- 5.
- 6. SHARE 2012 |6 Why are you here?
- 7. SHARE 2012 |7 Lost
- 8. SHARE 2012 |8 Not going so well http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e1/Car_crash
- 9. SHARE 2012 |9 Show me
- 10. SHARE 2012 |10 Attend sessions
- 11. SHARE 2012 |11 I can do this
- 12. SHARE 2012 |12 Back to work
- 13. SHARE 2012 |13 Show others
- 14. SHARE 2012 |14 Get down to work
- 15.
- 16. SHARE 2012 |16 Can I do this?
- 17. SHARE 2012 |17 Can’t win the game Know how to move
- 18. SHARE 2012 |18 Wanted:
- 19. SHARE 2012 |19 Got:
- 20. SHARE 2012 |20 Why is this so hard?
- 21. SHARE 2012 |21 Reality is messy (and chaotic)
- 22. SHARE 2012 |22 Dirty secret
- 23.
- 24. SHARE 2012 |24 We know it’s true & we don’t like it either
- 25. SHARE 2012 |25 I’d like my money back. Now!
- 26. SHARE 2012 |26 Do I have the answer? NoDo you want the solution? (sorry)
- 27. SHARE 2012 |27 But, I can help with the pain
- 28. SHARE 2012 |28 One Law
- 29. SHARE 2012 |29 Shared understanding
- 30. SHARE 2012 |30 Two main strategies
- 31. SHARE 2012 |31 1. Simplicity
- 32. SHARE 2012 |32 2. Flexibility
- 33. SHARE 2012 |33 Three main strategies
- 34. SHARE 2012 |34 3. Focus
- 35. SHARE 2012 |35 Let’s dive in
- 36. SHARE 2012 |36 One Law
- 37. SHARE 2012 |37 Shared understanding
- 38.
- 39.
- 40.
- 41.
- 42. SHARE 2012 |42 Yes! A bridge!
- 43. SHARE 2012 |43 Odds of Success?
- 44. SHARE 2012 |44 Project goes?
- 45. SHARE 2012 |45 Same page
- 46. SHARE 2012 |46 Wicked problems
- 47. SHARE 2012 |47 Hard (but tame) Wicked
- 48. SHARE 2012 |48 Guess what SharePoint is…
- 49. SHARE 2012 | Usuallya bunch of people who all have a different idea of what success looks like
- 50. SHARE 2012 |50 , won’t talk to each other
- 51.
- 52.
- 53.
- 54. SHARE 2012 |54SHARE 2012 | 54 Shared understanding
- 55. SHARE 2012 |55 1. Simplicity
- 56. SHARE 2012 |56 Go Big or Go Home
- 57. SHARE 2012 |57 Photo: ultrarob.com
- 58. SHARE 2012 |58 Learn how things work first
- 59.
- 60. SHARE 2012 |60 Don’t stink-up the joint
- 61. SHARE 2012 |61 Bar the doors
- 62. SHARE 2012 |62 Your governance plan
- 63. SHARE 2012 |63 Simple & Consumable - Sue Hanley
- 64. SHARE 2012 |64 Your metadata strategy
- 65. SHARE 2012 |65 Handcuffing your users is not a strategy
- 66. SHARE 2012 |66 Anger + confusion + frustration = Adoption failure
- 67. SHARE 2012 |67 A controversial idea
- 68. SHARE 2012 |68 Your training strategy won‘t work
- 69. SHARE 2012 |69 3 days of training Training fail
- 70. SHARE 2012 |70 You won’t squeeze the juice out of SharePoint
- 71. SHARE 2012 |71 You need a coach
- 72. 1. 2. SHARE 2012| 72
- 73. SHARE 2012 |73 Follow the KISS principle As simple as possible, but no simpler - Albert Einstein
- 74. SHARE 2012 |74 2. Flexibility
- 75. SHARE 2012 |75 Steering Committee Issues
- 76. SHARE 2012 |76 The cowboy CIO
- 77. SHARE 2012 |77 The savior
- 78. SHARE 2012 |78 (nothing)
- 79. SHARE 2012 |79 Grassroots campaign
- 80. SHARE 2012 |80 Hit the road
- 81.
- 82. SHARE 2012 |82 Flexibility
- 83. SHARE 2012 |83 3. Focus
- 84. SHARE 2012 |84 Focus on the right things
- 85. SHARE 2012 |85 Project failure
- 86.
- 87.
- 88.
- 89.
- 90.
- 91.
- 92.
- 93.
- 94. SHARE 2012 |94 Is launch the goal?
- 95. SHARE 2012 |95 Why do we put all the focus on a launch date?
- 96. SHARE 2012 |96 If you are not planning for change on day 1 You are already behind
- 97. SHARE 2012 |97 This stuff is confusing and difficult
- 98. SHARE 2012 |98 Your success strategy
- 99. SHARE 2012 |99SHARE 2012 | 99 One Law
- 100. SHARE 2012 |100 Three Strategies Simplicity Flexibility Focus
- 101. SHARE 2012 |101 You can do this
- 102.
- 103. SharePoint can bedangerous to your career SHARE 2012 | 103
- 104. SHARE 2012 |104 Expectations are set very high
- 105. The waters canbe rougher than expected SHARE 2012 | 105
- 106. SHARE 2012 |106 …but the results can make it worthwhile
- 107. My point ofview
- 108. What is anInformation Architect? http://www.flickr.com/photos/racingmix/274777460/
- 109. SHARE 2012 |109 What is a Business Analyst?
- 110. In the SharePointworld, it’s a bit of a hybrid
- 111. Dealing with humansin tough circumstances
- 112. SHARE 2012 |112 You have got to get everyone onto the same page
- 113. SHARE 2012 |113 The key to shared commitment is Shared Understanding
- 114. SHARE 2012 |114 Visual tools are a great way to get to shared understanding
- 115. PREPARING FOR SUCCESSFUL OUTCOMES Chapter1. Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler. Attributed to Albert Einstein
- 116. SHARE 2012 |116 Soft skills
- 117. Machiavelli (not exactly ) It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out nor more doubtful of success nor more dangerous to handle than to initiate a new SharePoint project; for the project team has enemies in all those who profit by the old portal, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new portal; this lukewarmness arising partly from the incredulity of mankind who does not truly believe in anything new until they actually have experience of it.
- 118. Dealing with humansin tough circumstances
- 119. Dealing with humansin tough circumstances
- 120.
- 121.
- 122.
- 123.
- 124.
- 125.
- 126. What makes somethinga requirement?
- 127. My three rulesof SharePoint 1. Simplicity 2. Simplicity 3. Simplicity
- 128. We can dothat for $10
- 129. We can dothat for $1,000,000
- 130. We require ajumbo solution to get to our destination
- 131. The SharePoint “HammerProblem”
- 132. Is it reallyclose by?
- 133. Is fast andlight-weight the way to go?
- 134. Is a pre-builtsolution the best course?
- 135. Do you needa specialized solution?
- 136. Do you needto think outside the box?
- 137. Sometimes you needthe jumbo solution
- 138. It’s the destinationthat matters
- 140. The environment willchange
- 141. The unexpected willhappen
- 142. A lot of“required” features never get used
- 144.
- 145.
- 146.
- 147. Agenda • About theProject , Our Team & Goals • SharePoint Overview • Department and Role • Document Collaboration • Document Storage and Search • Compliance, Records Management & Off-line • Questions
- 148. About the Project,Our Team & Goals About this Project • Determine the requirements and scope for a SharePoint implementation at ABC Corp. Our Team • Alison Andrews – Project Manager • Bob Baker – Technical Architect • Carol Conrad – SharePoint Analyst • Don Drummond – Infrastructure Analyst Workshop Goals • Set expectations • Gather your input • Keep it to an hour (+ optional half-hour for further questions)
- 149. SharePoint 2007 Overview Collaboration Portal Search Enterprise Content Management Business Process and Forms Business Intelligence Documents/tasks/calendars,blogs, wikis, e-mail integration, project management “lite,” Outlook integration, offline documents/lists Virtual Teams/Global Teams Enterprise Portal template, Site Directory, My Sites, social networking, privacy control Enterprise scalability, contextual relevance, rich search for people and business data Integrated document management, records management, and Web content management with policies and workflow OOB workflows, WF integration, rich and Web forms–based front-ends, LOB actions, pluggable SSO Server-based Microsoft Office Excel® spreadsheets and data visualization, Report Center, business intelligence Web Parts, KPIs/Dashboards Platform Services Workspaces, Mgmt, Security, Storage, Topology, Site Model
- 150. SharePoint 2010 OverviewRibbon UI SharePoint Workspace SharePoint Mobile Office Client and Office Web App Integration Standards Support Intranet, Extranet, Team Collaboration Tagging, Tag Cloud, Ratings Social Bookmarking Blogs and Wikis My Sites Activity Feeds Profiles and Expertise Org Browser Enterprise Content Types Metadata and Navigation Document Sets Multi-stage Disposition Audio and Video Content Types Remote Blob Storage List Enhancements Organizing Information Social Relevance Phonetic Search Navigation FAST Integration Enhanced Pipeline Search PerformancePoint Services Excel Services Chart Web Part Visio Services Web Analytics SQL Server Integration PowerPivot Business Intelligence Business Connectivity Services InfoPath Form Services External Lists Workflow SharePoint Designer Visual Studio API Enhancements REST/ATOM/RSS Building complex solutions on top of SharePoint
- 151. Department and Role Pleaseintroduce yourself: • Name • Department • What is your role within your department? • How do you interact with technology to do your job? • How does the current technology help you (or hinder you) from doing your job?
- 152. Document Collaboration • Doyou work on documents with others? • How do you collaborate (e-mail, shared drive) ? • What document types do you create? • Which programs do you use? • Do your documents require multiple reviews and edits? Is approval required? • How do you implement the required workflow? • How do you get the final information out to the audience that needs it? • Do you publish PDF’s? • How are they distributed/posted?
- 153. Document Storage andSearch • Can you find the documents that you need, when you need them? • Does your shared drive folder hierarchy work well? • How long does it take to find a document? At what point do you give up? • When you create a document, do you know where it should be saved? • Are documents saved in more than one location to ease retrieval? • Does search work well? • What features would you like to see in search that would make it better for you and your team.
- 154. Compliance, Records Management& Off-line • Do you have any regulatory requirements that you need to meet? • ISO 9000 • Sarbanes-Oxley – Bill 198 • How are records management policies implemented? • Are there specific policies for document retention and destruction. • Do you have a need for off-line access? • Do you travel off-site for your work • Do you need to work when you are disconnected from the network.
- 155.
- 156. NOW it’s okto demo SharePoint
- 157.
- 158. The Simplest PrioritizationFormula Ever… Estimated Value Estimated Difficulty
- 159. Prioritization Example Ihave a difficult solution. It’s an 8 in difficulty (out of 10). I have an easy solution. It’s a 2 in difficulty (out of 10). The expected value of the difficult solution is 4 (out of 10). The expected value of the easy solution is 6 (out of 10). Estimated Value Estimated Difficulty
- 160. Centralize Knowledge and Resources Enhance Collaboration Automate and ImproveBusiness Processes Enhance Governance Model Reduce Redundancy and Improve Efficiency Centralize Knowledge and Resources Centralize Centralize Centralize Centralize Enhance Collaboration Improve BP Governance Redundancy Automate and Improve Business Processes Governance Redundancy Enhance Governance Model Redundancy Reduce Redundancy and Improve Efficiency Paired Comparison Matrix Objective Weight Centralize 4 Collaboration 0 Improve BP 1 Governance 2 Redundancy 3
- 161. The Power OfZero $$ Change Orders
- 162.
- 163. INTRODUCTION TO MINDMAPPING Chapter 2 What do you call what we just did there? That was amazing! More than a few of my clients on more than a few occasions after a workshop where I used mind mapping
- 174.
- 175.
- 176.
- 177. THE MAGIC OFMETADATA Chapter 3 If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, it must be a duck. —Proverb
- 178. This is aMeta-Presentation • Two Goals and a Meta Goal: • Understand metadata • How it applies to taxonomy • How it applies to content types • Understand why it matters in SharePoint • Meta Goal • Educate you • Give you tools to educate YOUR stakeholders
- 179. The BIG question Whatis Metadata?
- 180.
- 181.
- 182. The BIG question Whatis Metadata? I think I get it Oh! Now I see (Mostly) What is Metadata? I think I get it
- 183.
- 184.
- 185. What does acow say?
- 186. What does achicken say?
- 187. What does aduck say?
- 188.
- 189. What is the‘content’? What are some attributes? • Artist: Prince • Genre: Pop/Rock • Year: 1984 Example from Yoav Lurie
- 190.
- 191. Another metaphor Adapted fromthe “pea soup” story by Serge Tremblay
- 192.
- 193.
- 194. So, what ismetadata?
- 195. or this…Not this! Whatis taxonomy?
- 196.
- 197.
- 198. Taxonomy Animal Kingdom Invertebrates Vertebrates Mammals Predators PrimatesWhales Rodents Squirrels Mice Mice & Rats Hamsters and Voles Porcupines Guinea Pigs Fish Amphibians Reptiles Birds Superclass Class Order Suborder Family Kingdom
- 199. The bottom ofthis tree Animal Kingdom Invertebrates Vertebrates Mammals Predators Primates Whales Rodents Squirrels Mice Mice & Rats Hamsters and Voles Real Hamsters Short-tailed dwarf hamsters Djungarian dwarf hampsters Roborovski Hamster Long-tailed dwarf hamsters Voles Gerbils Porcupines Guinea Pigs Fish Amphibians Reptiles Birds
- 200. Taxonomy X: Production Sales & Marketing Marketing CommercialIndustrial Government Healthcare Labs Hospitals Private Public Large Urban Not Associated University Rural Medium Small Clinics Mobile Sales Web Design Newsletter Social Shared drive zoo
- 201. Taxonomy X: Production Sales & Marketing Marketing CommercialIndustrial Government Healthcare Labs Hospitals Private Public Large Urban Not Associated University Rural Medium Small Clinics Mobile Sales Web Design Newsletter Social
- 202. We’ve all seenhow well this works out…
- 203. Taxonomy X: Production Sales & Marketing Marketing Major Hospitals CommercialIndustrial Government Healthcare Labs Hospitals Private Public Large Urban Not Associated University Rural Medium Small Clinics Mobile Colleges Big Small Sales Web Design Newsletter Social Shared drive zoo
- 204. Moving this messto SharePoint only makes it worse
- 205. SharePoint Sux! SharePoint isconfusing! Why?
- 206. What is ourbase metaphor for files?
- 207.
- 208. What if wesaw this?
- 209.
- 210. Solve it withfolders!
- 211. Now, you hirean intern to add documents
- 212.
- 213.
- 214.
- 215. The #1 ruleof SharePoint Never use folders Except when it makes sense to do so ever
- 216. When it makessense… Permissions assigned per folder
- 217.
- 218. SharePoint Taxonomy (Metadata) CustomerType • Lab • Hospital • Clinic • Mobile Sector • Private • Public Size • Large • Medium • Small Location • Urban • Rural University • Yes • No
- 219. Adding metadata (whenuploading)
- 220.
- 221.
- 222.
- 223.
- 224. What are contenttypes?
- 225. Name _________ Emp. #_________ Date _________ Dates Requested: From __________ To: __________ Manager ____ Approved Y/N Name _________ Emp. # _________ Date _________ Drug Used: Name __________ Cost: $ _________ Manager ____ Approved Y/N Vacation Request Drug Reimbursement
- 226. Both content typesin one list
- 227. Content types for:Workflow, Policy, Security
- 228.
- 229.
- 230. Key Points toTake Home • Metadata takes a while to understand • Use of metaphors can help • Use of visual tools can help a LOT • Much more than technology, it’s governance that makes the difference • Folders are bad, except when they’re not
- 231.
- 232.
- 233. This is tough,but the results can be worthwhile
- 234. Differences between BAand IA
- 235. Getting to SharedUnderstanding is crucial; visual tools can help
- 236. Soft Skills needto be developed: Confidence, Listening, Humour & Honesty
- 237. Gather requirements –Focus on business outcomes Requirements
- 238. Run the discoveryworkshops and build the roadmap
- 239. The magic ofmetadata
- 240.
- 241. What is CardSorting?
- 242. “Card sorting isa great, reliable, inexpensive method for finding patterns in how users would expect to find content or functionality.” - Donna Spencer http://www.amazon.com/Card-Sorting-ebook/dp/B004VFUOL0
- 243. What are thetypes of card sort? Open & Closed
- 244. Open card sortingprocess Gerbil
- 245.
- 246. But not alwayswhat you expect Ford Gerbil
- 247. But not alwayswhat you expect (2) Ford Gerbil
- 248.
- 249. WIREFRAMING Chapter 5 You can'tdo sketches enough. Sketch everything and keep your curiosity fresh. John Singer Sargent
- 250. I used tohate wireframing!
- 251.
- 252. Way too muchwork Erik Swenson
- 253.
- 254. BUSINESS PROCESS MAPPING Chapter7 If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don't know what you’re doing. —W. Edwards Deming
- 255. Information doesn’t just‘pop’ into existence
- 256.
- 257. GOVERNANCE, ADOPTION &TRAINING Chapter 7 Mary, Mary quite contrary, how does your garden grow? With silver bells and cockleshells and pretty maids all in a row. —Nursery Rhyme
- 258.
- 259. You need totend the garden SHARE 2012 | 268
- 260. Final gardening metaphor SHARE 2012 | 269
- 261. Above the linevs. Below the line SHARE 2012 | 270
- 262. Marcy Kellar’s PublishingCheat Sheet SHARE 2012 | 271http://www.thesharepointmuse.com/2011/12/lesson-learned-when-you-need-to-use-publishing-in-sharepoint/comment-page-1/ P 86
- 263. The modified pyramid SHARE2012 | 272
- 264. SHARE 2012 |273
- 265. What is governance SHARE2012 | 274
- 266. An outcome basedconcept (Paul Culmsee) SHARE 2012 | 275
- 267. A definition fromoutside SharePoint SHARE 2012 | 276
- 268. SHARE 2012 |277
- 269. Steering committee SHARE 2012| 278 The job of the steering committee includes: • Establishing vision and strategy, • Creating and managing the portal roadmap, • Synchronizing the vision across business units, • Acting as champions within individual business units as well as enterprise wide, • Defining success factors and key performance indicators and measuring results, • Procuring and allocating the intranet budget, • Reviewing and tracking intranet project budgets, • Providing operations team oversight.
- 270. Operations Team SHARE 2012| 279 The operations team is a partnership between IT and business owners of the portal. Its job is to communicate and cooperate to ensure that the portal runs smoothly and efficiently. The team members have to work together to balance the needs of IT for control and manageability and the needs of the business for responsiveness, reliability, performance, and flexibility. The team as a group doesn’t have specific roles and responsibilities; those are dictated by their individual roles further down in the hierarchy.
- 271. IT Manager SHARE 2012| 280 The IT manager is responsible for the physical infrastructure as well as operational aspects of the SharePoint service, including: • Hardware service and upgrades, • System assurance (uptime, performance, availability, security, disaster recovery, system updates and upgrades, monitoring), • Development or procurement and subsequent deployment of new features, • Help desk, second-level support, • Training and coaching (Optional: In many organizations, this is owned by other groups), • Key member of the operations team and the governance committee.
- 272. Editor in Chief SHARE2012 | 281 The editor in chief (sometimes called the portal owner) is the person responsible for the content that appears on the site. His or her responsibilities include: • Approving overall content on the site, ensuring consistency of look, feel, tone, style (words and pictures), and overall site quality, • Taking ownership of the home page, including approving content that appears there, ensuring it is fresh and accurate, • Nurturing and supporting the internal SharePoint community, • Leading communications efforts (letting the company know of new features or changes to the portal), • Being a key member of the operations team and governance committee.
- 273. Site Owner/Section Owner SHARE2012 | 282 The responsibilities of these owners include: • Maintaining quality for the content in this section or site, • Ensuring that high-risk (confidential/inappropriate) material is not exposed on the portal, • Ensuring that existing content is updated as required, • Ensuring that content is removed from the site if it is out of date, expired, or otherwise no longer relevant (while adhering to the records management policy), • Remaining aware of content in other areas to ensure consistency and to ensure that duplicate content does not exist elsewhere, • Ensuring that published content adheres to style policies.
- 274. Site Owners/Section Owners SHARE2012 | 283
- 275. Content Approver SHARE 2012| 284 This role is not usually assigned to a separate person; the section owner may be the approver of content for the sites contained within that section. Or a site owner may be the approver for subsites. In some cases, where there are legal or other high-risk issues, there may be approvers assigned from the legal or other departments. The responsibilities of the approver include: • Checking that content is factually correct, • Providing oversight to ensure that high-risk (confidential/inappropriate) material is not exposed on the portal, • Ensuring that content follows corporate policies for style and content, • Being responsible for timely approval (not being a bottleneck), • Ensuring that metadata has been properly entered, • Ensuring content is posted to the correct location.
- 276. Content Owner SHARE 2012| 285 The content owner may be the same person as the site owner, or that person may just be responsible for a subset of content within a particular area of a site. There is a lot of overlapping responsibility here That is because at every level, people have an absolute responsibility to ensure the quality and impact (safety and risk) of the content on the site. As we move up the responsibility hierarchy, each level can catch issues missed by the layer below. See P 195 for details here
- 277. Content Author SHARE 2012| 286 The next layer is where the actual work gets done: authoring. Content authors are responsible for: • Creating content, • Ensuring content adheres to corporate policies, • Ensuring that high-risk (confidential/inappropriate) material is not exposed on the portal, • Ensuring that appropriate metadata are properly and completely entered, • Ensuring that the content is placed in the correct location within the site.
- 278. Visitors/Readers SHARE 2012 |287 Finally, we get to the layer of those who have no hand in the creation, approval, or management of content: the readers. And yet, within an organization, you must put responsibility into the hands of readers to notice and point out material that is inaccurate, out of date, or that could put the organization at risk. You have to enable the readers to report issues by making it easy for them to do so. There should be a link on each page to report issues or at least to contact the page owner (every page must display who the owner of that page is).
- 279. Adoption in thereal world SHARE 2012 | 288
- 280.
- 281. The power ofleadership SHARE 2012 | 290
- 282. Build a community SHARE2012 | 291
- 283. Classroom Training SHARE 2012| 292 SUX
- 284. Video Training SHARE 2012| 293 SUX
- 285. No Training SHARE 2012| 294 SUX
- 286.
- 287. Your end-users DOneed training SHARE 2012 | 296 • Classroom • Video • Lunch and learn • Community
- 288. A new world SHARE2012 | 297
- 289. COMPLEXITY, WICKEDNESS AND DIALOGUEMAPPING Chapter 6 “Something wicked this way comes” —Ray Bradbury
- 290. Two books youmust read
- 291. What are wickedproblems? • You don’t really understand the problem until you’ve developed the solution • You don’t know when you’ve accomplished your goal • Solutions are not right or wrong, they are just better or worse • Every wicked problem is unique • Every solution to a wicked problem is a one-shot operation • You are dealing with social complexity
- 292. Tools that canhelp
- 293.
- 294. I use MindManager to express the same notation
- 295. Dialog mapping tocapture argumentation
- 296. Dialog mapping tocapture argumentation
- 297. Dialog mapping tocapture argumentation
- 298. Dialog mapping tocapture argumentation
- 299. Dialog mapping tocapture argumentation
- 300. Dialog mapping tocapture argumentation
- 301. Dialogue Mapping forscoping
- 302. CONCLUSION & WRAPUP Chapter 7 Things done well and with a care, exempt themselves from fear. —William Shakespeare
- 303.
- 304. Kick-off – Identifythe players
- 305. Nail down thevision
- 306.
- 307. Assess Current Maturityhttp://www.sharepointmaturity.com/home.aspx
- 308.
- 309. Managing Content • Inventorycontent and identify content owners • Writing for the web – learn to do it properly • Create and approve content as early as possible
- 310.
- 311.
- 312.
- 313.
- 314.
- 315. Communication Planning andCommunity Building
- 316.
- 317.
- 318. This presentation willbe available on the Toronto SharePoint Summit web site a few days after the event. Thank you
- 319. Please rate thissession! Fill out the survey and get a chance to win a Surface
- 320.
- 321.
- 322. SharePoint Containment Hierarchy Documents,Items and Pages Folders and Document Sets Libraries and Lists Sites Site Collections Databases Web Applications Servers Farm What we care about from an information architecture perspective.
- 323. SharePoint Containment Hierarchy Metadata Item Documents,Events, Pages, Custom Item, Image, etc. Folders and Document Sets Lists Doc Libraries, Pages, Calendars, Discussions, Surveys, etc. Sites Team Sites, Publishing Sites, Meeting Workspaces, etc. Site Collections
- 324. Site Collection orSite (Subsite)? OR
- 325.
- 326.
- 327. When To UseA Site Collection
- 328. When To UseA Site Collection
- 329. When To UseA Site Collection
- 330. When To UseA Site Collection
- 331. When To UseA Site Collection
- 332. When To UseA Site Collection
- 333. When To UseA Site Collection Site Collection 1 Site Collection 2 Webparts & Aggregation Webparts & Aggregation Masterpages & Page Layouts Masterpages & Page Layouts Search Across Site Collection Boundaries Navigation Navigation
- 334. When To UseA Site Collection Group A Group B Group C Collection Admin A Collection Admin B Group Y Group Z Collection Admin Y Collection Admin Z Site Collection 1 Site Collection 2
Editor's Notes
- #7 What brings you to this conference?
- #8 Maybe you’re planning a SharePoint project and you’re feeling a bit lostNot sure where to start – want to succeed
- #9 Or, maybe you’ve got a project underway, or even have SharePoint deployed, but… it’s not going so well
- #10 So, you’ve come here – a bit hopeful, but also a bit skeptical – hoping that your time spent here will pay dividends.After all, you’ve paid a lot of money, and you’re away from work… and even worse, your inbox is filling with more and more unread email
- #11 So, you carefully review the catalogue, agonize over conflicting sessions where you REALLY want to see both. You take lots of notes and you nod in agreement with what the speaker is saying:“Yes!!! That describes my situation exactly!!!”
- #12 And you think to yourself: Yes! I can do this. I have learned so much and I am going to take this back and implement it at my organization.
- #13 Get back to the office and put on your work boots
- #14 You’re all excited to show others the great new ideas, and …
- #15 … start to get down to work to implement them
- #16 And then… the road gets bumpy [4-clicks build]You may get messages to slow downChange DirectionSTOP
- #17 And you start todespair: Can I really do this?
- #18 And you feel like you know how to move the pieces,But you can’t win the game
- #19 You wanted to create something awesome
- #20 And you end up with this
- #21 The title of the talk is: why is it so hard… where did the slip up happen?You weremotivatedYou learned good stuff from the best of the bestWhat went wrong?
- #22 The awful truth is that reality is messy and chaoticThe nicely laid out examples that you hear in these sessions don’t seem to be working back at home. You are at a loss of what to do.
- #23 The dirty secret of conferences (and lots of training too)…
- #24 Is that the theory that you hear in the classroom does not map onto YOUR reality
- #25 And (the other dirty secret) is that we – the speakers – know it’s true, and we don’t like it either
- #26 Now, at this point, you may be thinking: I want my money back… Now!
- #27 But, let me ask you: Do you want the solution to this problem?Do I have the answer?No, I do not… sorry about that.
- #28 I can help with the pain by giving you some strategies and some specific work-arounds in specific areas.
- #30 To have ANY chance of success with any plan, you need to have a shared understanding of the goals with your team, stakeholders, key players, etc.
- #31 AND: Two main strategies
- #33 Be flexible, don’t give up, roll with the punches and try alternatives
- #34 AND: Two main strategies
- #35 Focus on the right things at the right time
- #37 Remember I told you about the one law:
- #38 Let me show you what this means and why this is so important
- #39 Our project is to build a bridge… so here’s a bridge
- #40 But so is this,
- #41 Or this…
- #42 Even this is a bridge
- #43 Our stakeholders are excited about this project!We’ve agreed that we need a bridge!But, if one person pictures a giant steel roadway bridge, others a covered bridge and one simple stepping stones… then…
- #44 Our odds of success are low – in-fact, I’d say zero
- #45 And that means that our project goes down the … um… drain
- #46 So, we need to get everyone onto the same pageWhy is this so important?
- #47 Because SharePoint falls into the category of “Wicked Problems”[I first learned this term from Paul Culmsee of Seven Sigma, Australia’s leading expert in problem wickedness and its solutions]
- #48 A moon-shot is a hard problem, but it can be stated clearly and simply: Take a man to the moon, bring him back aliveCure poverty: That’s a wicked problem. We can’t even agree on who’s poor, what poverty means, and how to know if we’ve been successful.And, when we’re working on TRYING to solve this, solutions are not right or wrong, they are just better or worse.
- #49 SharePoint is wicked with a capital WICK.This is because of the social complexity that SharePoint brings- You want to fundamentally change the way people do their jobs… and that leads to wickedness
- #50 Our stakeholders are excited about this project!We’ve agreed that we need a bridge!But, if one person pictures a suspension bride, others a covered bridge and one simple stepping stones… and…
- #51 Some of whom, won’t talk to each other.OUR CHANCES OF SATISFACTION ARE ZEROThis is social complexity impacting the success of a technology project
- #52 To have any chance of success, you MUST have everyone pulling in the same directionThis is a platitude – everyone knows this. The question is “How do we do this!”
- #53 Use visual mapping tools to work interactively with stakeholders to understand what the issues are and make sure that when people leave the room, they understand the arguments being made. They don’t need to all agree – but they need to feel sure that all options were discussed and how decisions were arrived at.(This approach is, again, something that I first learned about from Paul Culmsee – one of the world’s leading authorities on this technique)
- #54 Other ways to use maps are for taxonomies and content type relationships.Again, the use of a shared display, visual tools and [THIS *I* taught to Paul]
- #55 So, Shared Understanding: It’s the one law that you need to obeyLet’s dig into the first strategy
- #56 Simplicity – Einstein said: Make something as simple as possible, but no simpler.
- #57 When you are working on your SharePoint project, you may be thinking: Go big or go homeThat MAY be a high-risk, high-reward strategy
- #58 But… the risk is real – and depending on your skill and experience, quite likely(photo credit: ultrarob.com)
- #59 Start with an easier approach: Take the time to learn how things work first
- #60 Small successes build confidence
- #61 Try really hard not to stink up the joint.It’s really hard to recover from a project that has a bad smell attached to it.
- #62 Nothing is as good as a small success.When people get a whiff of THAT, holding back the demand will be your biggest problem.Let’s look at some examples where simplicity works
- #63 If your governance plans is 1/50th of this, you are in deep deep trouble my friend.<The only thing worse than a governance plan like this is a disaster recovery plan that is kept in a SharePoint site>The effort that goes into many governance plans DOES NOT pay off.
- #64 It needs to be in a form that is ‘consumable’ (Sue’s great word), in order to get your users to consume it.That is: read it, understand it and act on it.
- #65 You can frustrate people to distraction by asking them to do things they don’t understand or see value in.The person making this lunch bag must think that you’re crazy for asking them to tag it as ‘lunch’ – isn’t it obvious?
- #66 If you think governance is locking everything down and doing things like making all fields ‘required’
- #67 Anger, Confusion and Frustration will be the result, causing adoption failure
- #68 So, now I want to bring up a controversial idea…
- #70 Three or even five days of training will not make a business user into an information architect.No matter how much time you spend training them on content types and metadata, they will NEVER apply it to their work (for the vast majority of people).
- #71 Without content types and metadata, site owners revert to bad old folders and don’t get the value that SharePoint provides.
- #72 You need a coach – someone who is an expert who can help you get to success.
- #73 2 Reasons:An expert can sit down with the site owners, and (usually) in a short amount of time, learn what that user needs and build it for them very quickly, or assist and advise when building out a site.Governance without enforcement is just suggestion. The coach can follow-up at regular intervals to ensure that the client is following the rules and has not gone off the rails.
- #74 The ultimate message of this strategy – is keep it simple:Keep the technology simpleKeep the training simpleUse experts to deal with the hard stuffKeep it simple – but not TOO simple – it has to do the job.I like Einstein’s “As simple as possible, but no simpler”
- #75 The next strategy is flexibility: You will hear about the right way to handle stuff here – but you have to be ready to apply it to your unique circumstances.
- #76 You will probably learn in a number of sessions this week that having a steering committee is crucial to success.They may tell you that your SharePoint project is purely driven by IT (or even one other group) that doesn’t have broad participation from the business, you cannot truly succeed.
- #77 Well, what happens if you’re on a project – like I was – where the CIO is just not interested.We had one meeting with this good ‘ol boy – and he said “no-one on my team has time for more meetings”After that, we couldn’t get him to respond to any email or meeting requestsAnd then… out of the blue…We had a meeting with …
- #78 “the savior”This guy had just been assigned an important role, and had just transferred from an overseas branch.He was enthusiastic and excited.He had visionHe had charismaAnd he knew what he wantedAfter he left, I told the team (including our client): Our chances for success have just gone from 25% to 75%And you know what happened next?
- #79 NothingHe never responded to another emailHe never accepted another appointmentIt was like he had disappearedSo, what could we do… We had no leadership from the top at all
- #80 We began a grassroots campaign
- #81 We hit the road and travelled to a number of branches and met with small teams who were having pain with the current intranet.We showed them the comps of the new site and the ideas around content and governance.And they LOVED it.They were enthusiastic and wanted to be involved.
- #82 We were able to find people interested in being site owners, and even section owners.And we were able to select members to be in the operations team.We were able to get to success without a steering committeeAs we built it from the bottom-up
- #83 So that was a flexibility story – we needed to have a layer of leadership and direction that involved the business, but without any buy-in from the executive level.And it worked!
- #84 So now lets look at a strategy of Focus.
- #85 It’s crucial to be able to focus on the right things at the right time – and not get distracted by the wrong things.
- #86 [I love this example: I learned it from Richard Harbridge, and when I asked if I could use it, he told me he’d gotten it from Andrew Jolly, who’s a speaker here and who generously allowed me to use it]In 1999, NASA had suffered humiliating failures in two Mars missions – both had been tried using a faster/cheaper strategy, and been totally lost.They revamped and started preparing for the next mission – doing it right this time.
- #87 So, after 4 years of planning, design, testing & re-testing, in June 2003, they launched. (spirit & opportunity)
- #88 And everyone cheered!Were they done? Had the project reached it’s goal? Was the mission over?
- #89 7 Months later, it landed on Mars. It was a crazy, bouncy-ball contraption
- #90 And, guess what? The NASA engineers cheered again. Was the mission over? Had they done their job?
- #91 Now, the robot could crawl along the surface and run its experiments.
- #92 The NASA engineers cheered again. Was the mission over? Had they done their job?
- #93 NO! they still weren’t done! It was only when data was actually gathered and received back on earth for analysis that the mission was accomplished. And, although these little robots had only a 90 day mission to fulfill, they were designed so well that they went on for YEARS – providing a wealth of value and ROI over a number of years.
- #94 NOW the scientists were truly happy: The mission was accomplished!
- #95 So, let me ask you again: Is launch the goal?No: It’s just the start.
- #96 Many of the projects we work on are incredibly focused on the launch: The energy, the money and effort and the time are all focused on launch. But, if you’re not thinking about what happens in the hours, days and weeks after the launch, you are not focused on what is going to bring you value out of our SharePoint deployment and you’re not going to have a successful mission.
- #97 If it is one day after the kick-off of your project and have not discussed a communication plan and change management strategy yet, you are already behind.
- #98 So, to wrap this up, This stuff is confusing and hard.
- #99 So, to wrap this up, what is your success strategy?
- #100 One law above all others: Shared Understanding.By hook or by crook – make sure that your stakeholders are on the same page, or you simply CANNOT be successfull
- #101 What are the three strategies I’ve given you?Simplicity, Strategy, & Focus
- #102 You can do this!
- #108 [P xix]Responsible for SharePoint projects at a high levelResponsible for SharePoint projects from start to endHelping to define stakeholders goals and scope and budget for the project
- #109 InformationArchitecture Institute (iainstitute.org), defines information architecture as:1. The structural design of shared information environments.2. The art and science of organizing and labeling web sites, intranets, onlinecommunities, and software to support usability and findability.3. An emerging community of practice focused on bringing principles of designand architecture to the digital landscape.
- #110 Or, more of a business analyst, working with stakeholders to establish requirements?International Institute of Business Analysis (www.iiba.org) :A business analyst works as a liaison among stakeholders to elicit, analyze, communicate and validate requirements for changes to business processes, policies and information systems. The business analyst understands business problems and opportunities in the context of the requirements, and recommends solutions that enable the organization to achieve its goals.
- #111 I feel like I have to cover both of those as a consultant who works to understand the goals of my stakeholders, and then architect the solution
- #112 The valley of despair is a dangerous place, with creatures that have their own agendas ready to ‘eat’ your project
- #117 A lot of doing this job well comes down to soft skills: - Listening - Honesty - Humour
- #118 Everyone hates the current portalCan’t find anythingNot sure if content is validBUT- They do know where some stuff is, and this was hard-won knowledge and change to something that won’t be better – just different – is not what they’re looking forward to.
- #119 NEEDS WORKNow, the team working on the new portal has a different state of mind:They are envisioning a fantastic future state and foresee a climb, but the slope isn’t too severe – this is the ‘path of hope’.What they don’t realize is that their immediate rise in Optimistic Excitement is followed by a steep fall into the valley of despair. There are dangerous creatures there – ready to devour your proeject.But, once the reality of the project sets in The valley of despair is a dangerous place, with creatures that have their own agendas ready to ‘eat’ your project
- #120 set up multiple phases toward the eventual future goal, rather than trying to reach that peak inone step, because it is only once you start the journey that you will discover the issues and roadblocksthat are going to make the project much harder than it seemed at the start.Even though it is useful to break the project into phases, it is very important that you do your initialplanning with the ultimate goal in mind so that you don’t paint yourself into a corner by designing a solution thatgets you to the end of phase 1 or 2, but that needs a lot of rework or workarounds to reach the true, final goal.
- #121 You need to be perceived as the leader of your project, and the team, the stakeholders and the customers must have confidence in you.This does not mean that you have to pretend to know all the answers when you don’t. You can say ‘i’ll get back to you’.But you can’t be uncertain about every question.If you THINK you may be right, answer confidently. When you do a follow-up check – if it turns out that you’re wrong – you can follow up and explain why you changed your answer.You have to come to terms with the fact that, despite all the books and blogs out there, each circumstance is different, and you’ll need to be able choose your own path without a clear map of correct and incorrect.One of my favorite bloggers is Bob Sutton of the Stanford Design School. In one of his posts he writesabout Paul Saffo of the Palo Alto Institute for the Future who taught that leaders must have strong opinions. Weakopinions are uninspiring and don’t motivate people to test them or argue passionately for them. But, it is alsoimportant not to be too strongly wedded to your ideas, because it prevents you from seeing or hearing evidencethat contradicts your opinions. So to be a strong and wise leader you need to have strong opinions, but you need tobe ready to move off those opinions when the evidence requires it. This is summed up in the phrase that youshould take to heart: Strong opinions, weakly held.
- #122 You need to listen to your customers or you will miss important information. If you are conducting aworkshop, you are there to facilitate and gather information, not to impose your vision. You have to bemindful and in the moment. You need to eliminate all possible distractions. This means you turn off orsilence your phone, close your Twitter client (yes, I’ve seen people check their tweets during aworkshop!), and close or silence e-mail (it can really throw a meeting off track when an e-mail “toast”notification pops up on the screen while you’re working).There are a number of books and blogs on how to improve your listening skills. Search the Internetfor “active listening” or “mindful listening.” Choose a book or a program and then practice these skills.It is very important to fully hear what is being said without focusing on what you are going to say inresponse, because once you start to think of your response, you’re not listening anymore and there maybe valuable additional information you are missing.
- #123 Workshops can be stressful for everyone involved. Your customers are taking time out of their busy daysto attend this workshop. They don’t want you to waste their time and, at first, they may not really trustthat you are going to use their time effectively. You are under the gun to deliver a successful workshop,and you need to keep the meeting focused, but you can also keep it a bit light by using humor. This doesnot involve telling jokes, but rather making light of certain situations—especially if you are the target. Ittakes a pretty good level of trust and familiarity before you can make a joke at the expense of one of yourclients, and this is dangerous territory—I have seen it backfire (on me!).Here is an example of light humor in a workshop: We were talking about who would be the editorin-chief of the portal and I nominated someone in the room to be the “Queen of the Portal.” Everyonelaughed (I know, you had to be there), but from then on, she referred to herself (as did the rest of theteam) as the Queen of the Portal, and it served to lighten the mood of the room.
- #124 You need to be brutally honest about yourself. As I said above, if you don’t know something, say so.People can tell when you’re faking—either immediately or later when they find out you didn’t reallyknow. People will rely on your integrity, and once they trust you, they will believe you when you arguethat a particular choice or course is the right oneBeing brutally honest is no excuse for being rude
- #125 Analyst: I’m here to help you to implement SharePoint.Customer: Great! What can SharePoint do?Analyst: Lots of things: What do you want it to do?Customer: Um, I’m not sure . . . maybe you can give me a demo.Analyst: Sure: Imagine that you are a bicycle manufacturer in the Pacificnorthwest.Customer: But we aren’t a . . .Analyst: Isn’t this feature cool? It has a bike as a background image.
- #126 So it’s all about the requirements, right?Except it’s not
- #127 Because I said so, and I’m the customer.If you don’t include my requirement, I’ll shootOne of my biggest jobs as a SharePoint BA is to manage this desire. My three rules of SharePoint:
- #128 It’s hard enough to get to success, to get adoption, to build the right thing.Do you know the best way to avoid making a design error in what you build?DON BUILD IT IN THE FIRST PLACE!Start simple – get some success and then grow from there.
- #129 Cheap: Do it!
- #130 Wait a sec – maybe we can think of some alternatives(Hey! Maybe it’s no longer a ‘requirement’)
- #131 Really? Do you really?So, what happens when the customer says “I need this”This is the “we need it all” solution – often arrived at before defining the problemDid you know that a jumbo jet has six million components? IT IS NOT A SIMPLE SOLUTIONThe “Hammer” problem
- #132 You know the hammer problem – when that’s the tool you’ve got, Every problem looks like a nail,Except… SharePoint is a giant, massive mother of a hammer and youJust. Want. To. Squash. Everything. With. It.
- #133 Like, out of the box?
- #134 Streamlined solutionLike just a bit of config/CQWP/DVWP/JQuery
- #135 Yes, a bit restrictive, but cost effective.
- #136 Is the destination specialized and particularly hard to get to?You may need to write some code
- #137 A combination of everything
- #139 Bottom line: Arrive at outcomes based on business needs, not requirements
- #140 The other problem with requirements is that you only have one time to mention them, so you want ALLLLL of them to be met.So, you put everything in that you can think of…SharePoint lets you be ‘agile’Start with the three rules: Simplicity/Simplicity/SimplicityIdeas from: PragPub Feb 2011 – Pragmatic ProgrammersWay of the Agile Warrior - by Jonathan Rasmusson
- #141 But the reality is that most requirements never get used as designed because the landscape changes under your feet.
- #142 And this causes you to change course, sometimes even before that ‘required’ item is even finished being built or tested.
- #143 Leading to a bunch of rusty tools lying around that cause trouble for years.e.g. what happens when you need to upgrade or migrate? Someone has to chip the rust off to see if this stuff is even useful anymore
- #144 The result is wasted money
- #145 But First: DO NOT DEMO SharePoint Confuses peopleSets unreasonable expectations
- #146 The focus here needs to be on pain points and outcomes: NOT RequirementsTry to stick to one team at a time3 – 8 people is ideal – up to 12-15 can work.Need to make sure you hear from everyoneDon’t let manager dominateMake SURE you get front-line workers, not just managersBook 1.5 hours – plan on an hour and a bit.People love some extra un-booked time at the end.
- #147 The following slides are a sample deck that I use in workshops
- #157 Build a ‘day in the life’ demoUse their language, colors, logo
- #158 If you are lucky, you can take the results of these workshops and create a roadmap for a phased, rational approach to SharePoint deployment. Push HARD to do this step.Summarize workshop resultsBuild Gap AnalysisIdentify dependenciesLay out a timeline (not a project plan at this point)
- #159 You take the estimated value and divide that by the estimated level of difficulty then times (*) it by 100 to get the percentage of ROI.
- #165 Mind mapping is not newBeen around a long time, and used for brainstorming
- #180 Everyone knows the answer to this…
- #181 It’s “Data about Data” as Einstein proved all those years ago
- #182 Thanks for coming, we’re done now…This answer helps absolutely no-one – well, maybe Einstein
- #183 I’m not telling yet, but…It’s an iterative process – you won’t understand it right away, but you will circle in to understanding over time.
- #189 The sounds that these animals make are attributes that distinguish them from each other. The sound is NOT the animal, and does not replace the animal, but if I asked even a 3 year old, which one goes ‘quack’ they could point it out to me.So now, a more serious example…
- #191 How do you sort your CD’s?Artist? Title? Genre? Date? Cover Colour?You have to decide up front – and stick to it, because the objects are physical
- #192 What if the store was full of unlabeled tin cans? How could you tell which can had the corn?You would need to open every can to see if had what you wanted(Tin can example originally suggested by Serge Tremblay)
- #193 Now we don’t need to open each can, but they are all in a jumble and you have to pick up each can to check if has what you want.(Also, the fact that you may not know the language that the label was printed in could pose a problem)
- #194 Items are grouped by type (canned fruit, canned sauce, canned vegetables)Signs point you to the correct area so that you can quickly find what you need.BUT: Because the objects are physical, you need to pick a method and stick to itAND: Can cause duplication: Canned chilli’s may be in the veggie isle, but also in the ethnic food aislehttp://caseyxrobertson.deviantart.com/art/Grocery-Store-2-191196289
- #195 Data about dataYes, but not enough info Seth Maislin of Earley & Assoc. says it's the "Is-ness" of something:This 'is' a contract. That 'is' a pop album.For us it enables findability, policy and processFindability for locating the right documentsPolicy – records managementProcess – Status of a business process (e.g. Not started, In process, Complete, Approved, Archived)
- #197 Not really this, but let’s use these creatures to understand.
- #198 Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, who laid the foundations for the modern scheme of binomial nomenclature. He is known as the father of modern taxonomy
- #199 Review the animal kingdom taxonomy
- #201 Did you catch the subtle change here.The taxonomy is now of your ‘X’ drive.Which is your shared drive zoo!Let me zoom in
- #202 Here is where your file lives
- #204 Problem here is lack of governance – anyone can add any folder anywhere anytimeThis boils down to the ‘putability’ problem – I’ll search for a long time to find a doc, but not for long to see where to put it.
- #207 This uses the base metaphor that we live with every day.The concept of a “file” and a “file folder” as a way of storing digital data is a metaphor taken from the world of paper managementIt has become so ingrained, that we think of it as natural, but it’s not: It was invented in 1983 by Apple (wikipedia) [But they really stole it from Xerox]
- #209 All your files are stored in one folder and their names are completely meaninglessThis is like the unlabeled cans: You have to open each file to see what it contains
- #210 A bit of a better situationThe naming convention lets you find the file you need (but there’s no way to sort by year)Rely on users to follow the naming convention (religiously)
- #211 Now we’re in great shape!This is nicely structured and labeled, just like the supermarketBUT…
- #212 What a mess! Now, when you have to search for a document, you have to look in the ‘tree’ and also in all the other spots where the files could be.Another issue… If your boss needs you to find all ATT consumer files across all years, you have not alternative other than clicking all the parent folders open and drilling down to the documents that you need, one at a time.
- #213 There is a balancing act around finding and saving. The investment you make on one side, pays off (or costs you) on the other side.
- #214 On the findability side (searching or browsing) [Not a ‘real’ English word]If you really need that needle, you’ll look through a lot of haystacks
- #215 There is an essential asymmetry to putability [Also not a real English word]: (Except that I learned them from Bill English)You can give up fairly quickly on deciding where to save something – there is always a fast and easy way out….It’s called: I’ll just put it here – I’ll remember later where I left it. THIS IS A BIG LIE
- #218 I’m not Carl, but let’s talk about why this works.After all, it’s the same as a directory treeThe difference is governance
- #220 Is this too many to ask for?Do we force users to answer all these questions/enter all this data?
- #221 Instead of confusing people with the SharePoint interface, I use a familiar tool: ExcelUsing some simple macros, I am able to illustrate the power of filters and views.There’s no free lunch however: People now have to enter metadata.We can simplify this by defaulting values like “Date” to today and “Year” to current year.We can leverage content types as well
- #222 Explain metadata and then use this worksheet for ‘homework’
- #226 Think of them as different forms with slots to fill in.Two documents may have overlapping slots (or, metadata).It may make sense to store these two types of docs in the same library (HR Requests), but use content types to drive workflow, policy and prompt users only for the metadata that applies.
- #227 All columns (metadata) exist in the same list, even though the user is only prompted to fill-in the ones for the content type that they are using.
- #228 Content types cannot be used for security
- #231 What is this a picture of?With a lot of experience, training or imagination, you may figure something out – but the concept is ABSTRACT
- #232 This is something that people understand and agree on.It is concrete (no, not made of concrete – it’s marble)Visual tools can help make the abstract into the concrete
- #233 MindManager (from MindJet) is a tool that has changed the way I work. Here is a quick demo of how it works.
- #236 Using mind-mapping tools to build the taxonomy from the homeworkI use MindJet MindManager – and I like and highly recommend it.There are other tools that are less expensive such as X-Mind and freemind.
- #237 A technique to get input orfeedback from usersYou may have great ideas of how to organize you intranet, but you users may have different ideas
- #249 To continue to quote Donna:Card sorting is best understood not as a collaborative method for creating navigation,but rather as a tool that helps us understand the people we are designing for.
- #250 In an open sort, people are not given any categories, they just have to organize concepts into groups.In a closed sort, people are told the headings and then they have to sort concepts under the categories that they’ve been given
- #251 The analysis can be useful, but it is the process of watching people do the sorts that helps provide the real value
- #262 This tool called ‘Balsamiq’ makes it extremely simple and fast to make wireframes.They look cartoonish, but that makes it easy to focus on what’s important (not color, font, etc.)
- #268 After you’ve designed and built a SharePoint solution that meets your user’s and stakeholders’ needs, do you just hand over the keys and say “Done”
- #269 I hope your answer to that question is “No.” Your beautiful site is like a garden, it will soon becomeovergrown with weeds, and all the carefully cultivated plants will die if they aren’t taken care of. Tendingyour SharePoint garden is an ongoing task; you need to assign people to care for it and care about theoutcome, and they need to be people who know what they are doing.
- #270 To stretch the gardening metaphor a little further (maybe too far?): You also can’t just hand overshovels and seeds to people who are going to fill in some of the empty spots you have left for laterexpansion. The work they do has to fit in with the original plan so that the whole system will fulfill itspurpose and so the garden will “make sense” to those who use it.
- #271 The first time I heard of the concept of SharePoint governance was in late 2006 when Joel Oleson started blogging about it. Joel was working for Microsoft at the time, and his early work lit a fire under the governance movement in the SharePoint world. Joel’s perspective was that of an IT professional, and so his take on governance heavily emphasized that perspective. His posts talked about things like quotas, data retention policies, cost models, and managed deployment. But in addition to these, Joel did take a wider view, asking questions about branding, communications planning, and stakeholder and ownership.The first time I saw the famous Pyramid Diagram was on Joel’s blog. (You can see the one Joel first shared at http://bit.ly/originalpyramid.) When I saw Joel speak about governance, I learned that his term for below the line was “Wild Wild West” because in most SharePoint sites, it was chaos down there. The work that Joel and others started led to a surge of activity around creating governance plans.[This is a jump back to chapter 4 for these next few slides]ABOVE THE LINE vs BELOW THE LINEWhat I have found to be most useful about this diagram is the heavy black line that crosses throughthe middle of the pyramid. When talking to stakeholders, I describe the difference betweencommunication sites (above the line) and collaboration sites (below the line). In the communicationsites, the content is created by a relatively small number of people for consumption by a relatively largenumber of people. The content is carefully written and checked before publication, and it is the placewhere a lot of thought needs to be given to make material easy to find by a broad spectrum of users.When my project stakeholders understand this model (which they grasp pretty quickly), it helpsthem to think about where a particular type of content belongs and who would have control over it.
- #272 There is another distinction that often (but not always) separates the content above the line from that below: publishing versus nonpublishing (or collaboration) infrastructure in SharePoint. The content that appears above the line is almost always built using web-content management (WCM) tools and concepts. This is content that is made of text, images, and graphics, where the content is created and managed by people who are specifically trained in how to create these types of pages. There is often a workflow around getting the pages approved and published, and the pages are not usually veryinteractive. There is a lot of enforced consistency (through the use of templates and style limitations) so that all of the content has a consistent look and feel.Marcy wrote a great post to help understand this distinction
- #273 I have recently modified the pyramid diagram to take into accountthe concept of departmental sites that have an outward facing side and an inward facing side.The reason for including the dashed line this way is to indicate that while the departmental sites have been split, they are both still “above the line,” in the sense that they are tightly controlled and make use of the publishing infrastructure (WCM) to display their content.
- #274 However, there is another way to construct this. Some departmental sites may have an external view, especially if they have a story to tell to the rest of the organization. However, many or most of thedepartments don’t have a wide audience within the company, or due to constraints on resources, they are going to be more autonomous and self-governed. For this reason, these sites are created below theline, near the Projects and Workspaces area, as collaboration sites (Figure 4-9), even if they do have parts that are shared more widely with the company.Helping your stakeholders understand the different capabilities of SharePoint (collaboration versus publishing) and how these can be applied to the structure of your site will help them determine wherenew sites and content should be added, how that content should be governed and managed, and how your users will find what they are looking for when they use the site.
- #275 There were lots of great sessions on this conference (particularly Sue’s) that attempt to answer this question.Here are my simple definitionsIncorporating all of these points of view into one governance plan usually leads to a giant, monolithic document. It includes descriptions of how the governance committee should be constituted, what the rules should be for myriad settings, ownership, branding, new site requests, and so forth. I have to confess that I have written a number of these types of plans myself. The result is a lot of great work gets turned into shelf-ware: a document that sits in a binder and never gets referred to again.
- #276 There are a few rebels in the world of SharePoint governance who’ve taken a non-rulebook approach to governance. One of them is Paul Culmsee (http://www.cleverworkarounds.com), who wasthe first person who showed me that the actual root of the word govern comes from the Greek for steer, and he introduced me to the concept of governance as steering. When I attended Paul’s SharePoint “Governance and Information Architecture Master Class,” he tried to steer us (ha!) away from complex, highly detailed definitions of governance. He explainedgovernance as a process you follow to move from an unhappy present state toward an aspirational future state (Figure 10-1). This definition brings governance out of “listing a set of rules” and onto ahigher plane that focuses first on what you are really trying to accomplish and then asks you to explore how you will get there.
- #277 I like the way this definition extends Paul’s model by adding “how account is rendered.” I once heard someone say that governance without enforcement is just suggestion. While I don’t think that accountability and enforcement are synonyms, they drive toward a key concept that seems to be at the root of most governance planning failures: no follow-up, no enforcement, and no real accountability. Without these, the governance plan falls by the wayside and SharePoint fails to live up to its potential. Dux Raymond Sy (http://sp.meetdux.com/default.aspx), one of the most accomplished and popular speakers at SharePoint conferences, is famous for saying: “SharePoint doesn’t suck. You suck.” I thinkwhen he says this he is most commonly referring to either poor planning or poor governance.
- #289 Adoption is a hot topic these days.Cory Banks talked about “When you talk about risk: What’s the risk that no-one will use the platform that you’ve spent so much time and money creating”One of the strangest things about the failure of governance is that the governance plan itself often describes mechanisms that are intended to ensure that accountability exists; it describes in elaboratedetail the composition and responsibilities of the governance committee, as I have just done above. But without the right level of engagement from the leadership, users don’t get a robust system that they are encouraged or required to use. The lack of engagement by leadership leads to limitations of resources, and, as a result, adoption suffers. With lack of adoption comes even less perceived value by management, and the cycle spirals downward from there.
- #290 Leaders don’t careIT tries to avoid chaos and locks down SharePoint.Training is too soon, too late, not targetted.
- #291 THERE NEEDS TO BE ACCOUNTAB ILITYVery early in my career I learned about the power of leadership when it comes to SharePoint. I was working for a consulting firm that had a strategic planning meeting every Monday morning. The CEOwould sit at the head of the table with a keyboard and mouse, and his computer would be projected onto the screen at the front of the room. All meeting notes were kept in SharePoint, along with links to key documents, which also were housed in SharePoint.At one point in the meeting, the CEO asked me about how I was coming along with a particular proposal. I said it was 90 percent done. He wanted to see it and asked me where it was in SharePoint. I said, “Sorry, I have it saved to my desktop, I’ll upload it after the meeting.” He said, “No, we’ll wait while you go and upload it now.” From then on, everyone knew: Documents must be saved intoSharePoint. I was held accountable for not following the company policy on documents: I never made that mistake again.■ Note I have worked with a lot of IT teams and found them to be willing to listen and be flexible up to a point.The issue is that they are usually overworked and understaffed, so they need to get their critical work done underdifficult circumstances. It is precisely for this reason that leadership is important: Priorities need to be set andresources allocated if you are going to have a chance at getting the maximum value out of your SharePointinvestment.LACK OF COMMUNICATIONThe goals and rules (governance) are often very poorly communicated. Change is hard – you have to do everything right (esp communications) if you want a chance at success.
- #292 There is a group of people outside your operations team who can help you succeed with your SharePoint project. Wherever I have gone, there is always a group of SharePoint enthusiasts out there.These are people who see the potential of SharePoint, and in many cases they have already started to harness it for their own needs (sometimes in a non-sanctioned way). If you can find these people and give them some recognition, such as private lunch-and-learns or a site for them to share information or answer one another’s questions, or even a “sandbox” site to experiment on, they will be your champions, informal helpers, and evangelists throughout the company.
- #293 Not really talking about end-user training here…Too soon or too lateNot relevant (too generic)Too time constrained (can’t schedule a day or more away from work)ExpensiveIT DOESN’T STICK – you can’t teach IA to users in 2-3 daysROI Sucks!
- #294 Video training sucksGenericOr, ExpensiveNeed to find what you need when you need itCan show basic functions, but not so good at creative application of featuresHard to get the granularity right
- #295 If you don’t train your users, there is no way they are going to figure out a tool as complex as SharePoint on their own. They will manage to get some work done and find some ways to get some things to work.The more dedicated will go out and buy a book. But the reality is that they will not learn to use SharePoint efficiently, and they’ll be frustrated and unhappy. These people tend to say (loudly and towhomever will listen): “SharePoint sucks!”
- #296 Coaching is the answerCoaching for migration and content creationCoaching for governanceFollow-up to ensure the rules are being covered
- #297 People need training in how to use and navigate the portalHow to add and modify contentHow to SEARCH!!!
- #298 Exec engagementCoached site admins/ownersTrained users= Governance, Adoption= Success
- #303 Four symbols, very simple(tricky to master)
- #313 Among my friends who do the type of work I do, we sometimes debate the question: Is it the practice orthe practitioner? What we are trying to get at is, how much of the success we experience in our projects isdue to our skill and experience in general and how much is due to the specific methods we use? Wegenerally agree that the practitioner is a large component of the equationThe techniques and tools I have presented in this book have made a big difference in the way I work,and I have seen them be tremendously helpful to others. However, there are no silver bullets. Thismeans that even the use of these methods does not guarantee success. SharePoint projects are complexand often political; the stakeholders have other priorities and other projects and people who are seekingtheir attention. You may not have the level of senior management buy-in that you need, the project maybe underfunded, or you might not be able to hire the right technical resources in time. In short, there aremany things that can interfere with the success of the project. What I have covered in this book is notgoing to guarantee success. You will need to use these tools and combine them with your experience andskills as a facilitator and business problem solver to navigate the rocky shoals of potential shipwreck foryour project.
- #314 You need to know who the key stakeholders are. There are really two groups to get a handle on: who willbe on the project team and who will be on the governance committee. These will probably be differentindividuals, though there may be some overlap. You want to know who the final decision makers will beboth during the project and after delivery. You want to know who is going to make up the top two layersof the governance hierarchy
- #316 It’s important to get a good understanding of who your users are. Create persona profiles representingthe different groups that will be users of the intranet in your organization. Don’t go crazy with this one.It’s possible to do a lot of ethnographic studies and devote a lot of resources to building very detailedprofiles for each persona. I think that this may be a worthwhile exercise for a public-facing e-commerceweb site, I am not sure that it’s worth a huge investment for a corporate intranet. But it is good to have aclear picture of who your users are and what they are expecting to get out of the site (
- #317 If you are replacing or upgrading an existing SharePoint intranet, or just investigating where to startdoing so, go to www.SharePointMaturity.com and download the “Maturity Model” (shown in Figure 12-4)developed by Sadalit Van Buren (with input from the wider SharePoint community). It is a great place tostart, and it will help your stakeholders get a picture of the current state of the organization and to helpthem set targets for where they would like to be at some point in the future.
- #319 INVENTORY: There is usually a ton of content already in existence. Your goal is to migrate content of value, create newcontent where it is needed, and remove ROT (redundant, obsolete, and trivial) content.WRITING: One of the best resources for this is Jakob Nielsen’s blog (www.useit.com/papers/webwriting). His“Writing for the Web” articles (Figure 12-6) give you the research-based answers on how to writeeffectively so people will read and be able to absorb your content.Create content as early as possibleNO LOREM
- #320 Designing the site navigation is one of the most critical elements of building a new site. Although it ispossible to change a site’s navigation after it goes live, this is very costly in terms of user confusion andfrustration. This task has added complexity due to political forces that can impact the process: Peoplewant their content to be easier to find or more prominent
- #321 It is very important that your stakeholders understand what the difference is between the portal areasand the collaboration areas. The use of the pyramid (Figure 12-8), with the “above-the-line” and “belowthe-line” concept, is a very useful way to communicate this.
- #322 Building your SharePoint infrastructure is a crucial part of the process of building out or upgradingSharePoint. The problem is often one of timing. In order to meet project timelines, the infrastructurecomponents have to be designed, budgeted, signed-off, ordered, installed, and configured according to aset of project milestones. The pressure is often high to get the design finalized as soon as possiblebecause of hardware-ordering lead times. The problem is that this is asked for before the businessproblem is fully defined, leaving your technical team in a quandary: They will have to make guesses andestimates before they really have all the information they need. This is another reason to get the keydecision makers involved early and to use the mapping techniques discussed earlier to ensure thateveryone has a shared understanding of what is required so that reasonably accurate infrastructureplans can be made.
- #323 The single most important thing that SharePoint can do for your organization is to improve informationfindability. The concept of findability encompasses both browsing and searching.
- #324 Getting the page layouts right is where wireframing comes in. With an easy-to-use tool (like Balsamiq,covered in Chapter 5) and easy-to-change page layouts, you can work with your stakeholders to come upwith a set of layouts that will work with their different types of content. These wireframes can then beused for quick and relatively inexpensive usability tests to see if people can perform the tasks they needto accomplish.
- #325 I attended a presentation about four years ago (I wish I could remember who presented it) where themessage was: If you’ve had your project kickoff meeting and you haven’t started your communicationsstrategy yet, you’re late!As much as people generally dislike their current intranet, they’ve at least figured out where the stuffthey need is. If they arrive on a Monday morning to find a brand new, super well-designed, and beautifulintranet waiting for them, chances are they’ll hate it. People generally don’t like surprises at work
- #326 I explained why I think that training as a classroom exercise is less than optimal.However, I realize that my coaching manifesto may be too much too soon for some organizations. If thisis the case with your organization, then yes, send your content owners and authors on training, but youmust make sure they have enough support once they get back to work, otherwise they will have to just dotheir best with whatever parts of the training stuck
- #327 And that is how I want to conclude this workshop, with the bookends that are the mostimportant success factors for a SharePoint project: good planning at the start with shared understandingof business goals, outcome alignment, and an understanding of the complexity facing the team; And then proper support at the end of the project through the application of coaching and governance thatcarries the project from the build phase through deployment and maturation, while ensuring that theinitial goals set by leadership continue to be met.
- #331 And that is how I want to conclude this workshop, with the bookends that are the mostimportant success factors for a SharePoint project: good planning at the start with shared understandingof business goals, outcome alignment, and an understanding of the complexity facing the team; And then proper support at the end of the project through the application of coaching and governance thatcarries the project from the build phase through deployment and maturation, while ensuring that theinitial goals set by leadership continue to be met.
- #335 To Impose Specific Storage QuotasWith SharePoint Site Collections you can define specific storage quotas and email warnings to notify users when they are approaching a defined threshold on their site collection storage.To Impose Specific Sandbox QuotasWith a SharePoint Site Collection you can define the maximum number of points sandbox solutions can use per day. Additionally you can also configure an email warning when storage exceeds a certain number of points.
- #336 For Search SeparationFor Workflow Separation
- #337 So Your Site Collection Does Not Have The Same Active (or Inactive) Site Collection FeaturesThere are many times when this comes in handy. In SharePoint 2010 there are quite a few Site Collection level features you may not want active on specific site collections.Site collection features that are not active on other site collections (for example, the Publishing Infrastructure feature)
- #339 For Search SeparationFor Workflow SeparationSo Your Site Collection Does Not Have The Same Active (or Inactive) Site Collection FeaturesThere are many times when this comes in handy. In SharePoint 2010 there are quite a few Site Collection level features you may not want active on specific site collections.Site collection features that are not active on other site collections (for example, the Publishing Infrastructure feature)To Have a Separate Help Library to Store Custom Help
- #341 Disadvantages of Using Site CollectionsAll out-of-the-box Web Parts understand and work well within the boundaries of a Site Collection. None of them, including the significantly used Content Query Web Part, will cross Site Collection boundaries. Thus, the aggregation of information across Site Collection boundaries is not possible using out-of-the-box Web Parts.You need to consider this when determining how you will split your information across Site Collections. Any situation that requires you to aggregate and display information across Site Collection boundaries will require a custom development effort or the purchase of a 3rd party Web Part.Your branding and content publishing customization efforts will also have to be duplicated. Currently, all master pages, page layouts, and CSS files, common publishing images and reusable content is bound to a Site Collection.
- #342 For Security Management Benefits:Every site collection creates a security boundary between one collection of sites and another collection of sites. Each site collection has its own collection of SharePoint groups and ACL references.You cannot see a complete list of Users who have permissions to the site or ObjectUsers are members of more than one AD GroupWork backwards to figure out permissions2010 – 1000 objects in an ACL, 5000 Objects per SharePoint GroupThe more ACLs you have, the more ACLs you have to manageKnow the Software Boundaries and Capacity limits http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262787.aspxFor Privacy or Management Benefits and Different Site Collection AdministratorsEach site collection has a role of “Site Collection Administrator” and a person or more assigned to that role. There are times when either for privacy/confidentiality reasons you cannot have a specific site collection administrator with the rights to see that sites content, or where you have different people that should be assigned to manage that collection of sites. The second is an extremely common scenario in large enterprise organizations where there is a need to distribute the technical ownership of site collection administration.