Elements of Successful SharePoint Road-Mapping

Here are some of the major elements of a successful SharePoint
road map. Things don’t go smoothly when any of these elements are
lacking.

Ann 1
1. Set Goals and
Objectives:
The key feature for any strategic
planning is “Setting your Goals and
Objectives
“.

Start out by mapping your goals and make them clear to everybody
involved in the project, both business users and IT. Make sure that
they know the goals, as well as the objectives, i.e. the actions
that need to be taken in order to achieve those goals. Clear goals
and objectives give everyone involved in your SharePoint projects a
unified sense of purpose, whether their involvement is major or
minor. It will then be clear to them what they need to be working
towards. Make sure that your goals and objectives are loud and
clear.

Ann2
2. Identify and Engage Key Stakeholders: These
are the people or groups that help ensure the success of your
solution.

Make sure that you have representatives from the different key
functional areas within your organization; this will provide a good
balance between the needs of your business and end-users no matter
what department or functions they’re from.

 

 

Successful SharePoint

3. Know Who Really Controls What: A point
related to identifying and engaging the right key stakeholders is
that you need to know who really controls what or who owns
what.

Make sure that you have a clear definition of the roles and
responsibilities of the people or groups involved in your
SharePoint project.
Be sure you define the roles and responsibilities of your business
analysts, project managers, SharePoint developers, etc. In smaller
organizations, one person may be wearing two or three different
hats, so make sure you define those as well. Also know who owns the
branding for the intranet site or extranet so you know who to go to
in order to frame decisions on this matter. Clearly defining roles
and responsibilities can greatly reduce time spent loitering around
because people involved in the project will have a clear visibility
of the direction they need to take or who to get approvals
from.

4. Communication Plan: Another key part of any
strategy is the communication plan. Make sure that your
communication plan is aligned with you organization’s culture. The
communication strategy of, let’s say, a marketing firm where people
are more visual will be different from the communication strategy
for a law firm or for a pharmaceutical company. When laying out
your communication plan, consider the following;
• Be clear about the purpose and objective of every
communication
• Identify the most effective method of communication for
different types of audience

 

Successful SharePoint

5. Training and Adoption Plan: Develop a
comprehensive training plan. Train the users on how to use the new
solution. Try to create different kinds of training, since users
have different learning styles.

Organize your own SharePoint user group or power users. Find ways
to motivate your users.

 

6. Focus on Key Features: Plan out the key
features that you will introduce to your users. Never assumed that
the users already have the knowledge, because they may not have it.
The simple task of uploading documents on a document library and
tagging it with the right metadata might be a piece of cake for
some users, but it could be a great deal of frustration for
others.

So focus on key features that will alleviate the pains of your
users. You can show them how easy it is to use search, show them
how to navigate to the different areas of the portal so they can
easily find what they’re looking for. This will lessen the
resistance of the users to the new solution.

7. Measurement and Metrics: A very important part
of SharePoint road-mapping is the measurement and metrics. This is
why setting your goals and objectives is crucial, because they will
ultimately be your basis for measuring the success of your
SharePoint implementation. You have to think about which measures
or metrics you need to put in place in order to determine whether
the goals and objectives that you set are being met.

You can check the number of hits you’re getting on the new
intranet site, check whether they are increasing from the day you
launch the new intranet site or whether they are decreasing. One of
the common things that organizations usually do is conduct a survey
and allow users to send their feedback. That way, even if you have
already launched the new solution, you can continue to make it
better. The worst thing that you can do is to allow your solution
to stagnate.

Mary Ann
Lorkowski (Ann) is a senior SharePoint business analyst.
Her expertise focuses on implementation strategies and
collaboration. She has helped various companies with their
governance, roadmaps, implementation, user adoptions, and the
development of metrics.Ann is certified as a Microsoft IT
Professional in SharePoint Server 2010 and as a Microsoft IT
Specialist in MOSS 2007.

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