Are you thinking about deploying SharePoint in your organization? You won't have to do much research before you come across the big "G" word - governance. Just the word itself is somewhat imposing and definitions for it will vary. In fact, if you ask three different experts what governance means, you're likely to get four different answers. And while I have yet to find that one, perfect definition of governance, I can accept this one from Microsoft: "Governance is the set of policies, roles, responsibilities, and processes that guides, directs, and controls how an organization's business divisions and IT teams cooperate to achieve business goals." In short, it is a "how to" guide.

Why do we need governance? Because we want to ensure (or even better, assure) that the IT solution achieves the business goals. With complex systems like SharePoint, users need help. Users need guidance on what they can do and how they do it. Trust me, they aren't going to just "figure it out." You may also have content that must comply with legal regulations such as HIPAA or Sarbanes Oxley-without a governance plan, you may be in legal jeopardy.

Moving past the "what" and "why" of governance, an even harder question to answer is how to implement SharePoint governance. Part of the challenge here is that there is no one way, no right way. How SharePoint is used varies greatly, and for that reason, you'll never find a master template on implementing SharePoint governance. Nonetheless, there a number of suggestions I'd like to share on how you can effectively implement a SharePoint governance plan.

There are many reasons why organizations avoid governance altogether. Since governance is so overarching, it seems overwhelming and many don't know where to start. For others, they dive in and start setting policies on everything and never finish. In overly optimistic companies, they assume or expect end users will somehow collectively develop the plan over time. Avoid these traps.

One of the best practices for a SharePoint deployment also applies to your governance plan: start small and grow it incrementally. For example, we wouldn't recommend turning on every SharePoint feature starting on day one. SharePoint does way too many things. Turning on everything confuses users and makes governance planning impossible. Start by enabling a small subset of features to match only some of your business goals. Maybe you only start with social collaboration or enterprise search. Then, have the governance plan focus on
just this area. As SharePoint expands, you revise the governance plan.

Be sure to recognize that the degree of governance will vary depending on what your business goals are. For example, if you plan on using SharePoint for informal team collaboration, you'll need fewer rules than if you're a hospital managing sensitive patient records

Consider the organization's readiness

Assess your company's culture and determine what I like to call governance readiness. Do you have clearly defined policies and procedures in other systems? Are users comfortable with these policies? Governance policies you create should match the readiness or maturity level. For example, if your company has been lenient on how expense reports are approved, you don't want the new process to be rigid and tightly managed. People adapt slowly and your governance plan must keep that in mind.

If this is your organization's first attempt at governance, you might consider holding off on some of SharePoint's advanced features such as records management as it does involve complex governance planning. And, even if you can articulate the ideal governance plan, the users won't be ready for it. As time passes, the organization and its staff will adapt and evolve. When it does, you can tackle the more complex business problems.

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