Another SharePoint Resource

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Last year the print edition of Messaging News ran A New SharePoint Resource, talking about Seamless Teamwork, my first book. The key point with Seamless Teamwork was to offer a book to the non-technology people in a firm; the business users that have to use SharePoint after the IT department is done with it. Seamless Teamwork helps in this regard by painting a coherent narrative about how a normal business user (and team) can benefit from SharePoint in a team project.

In a follow-up salvo, I have just written and published a second book on SharePoint. It’s another book on the business and human aspects though, rather than being a deep geek book. The new book is targeted at the technology people who have installed SharePoint and are wondering “what next?” The key point in my new book, SharePoint Roadmap for Collaboration, is that having a nice shiny SharePoint implementation isn’t the point; doing business better is. It addresses the question of what the IT department needs to do to bridge the divide between what they know about the technology of SharePoint, and what the business groups need from the technology of SharePoint.

Consider a real example from a large U.S. firm. Before SharePoint was implemented, a business team had documents to work on together. They used email to share the in-progress document, with one person sending out the latest edition to the rest of the group, and then getting 10 copies back and having to collate the results. It is a way of collaborating, but it’s a friction-full and error-prone way! After SharePoint was installed by the IT department, the group started putting the document into a SharePoint document library, instead of emailing it around. But, rather than using check-out and versioning to eliminate document chaos, each member of the group continued to download their own copy of the document, and then each upload a new copy. In other words, they have new technology, but the outcome is the same: document chaos!

What’s the problem here? The business users haven’t been coached about how to re-imagine the way that work gets done given that new technology is available. They haven’t been taught about the new capabilities of SharePoint and how it can help improve the way they work. Most importantly, the group hasn’t made the decision to adopt and embrace that new way of working. But it is more than a technology change—the collaboration practice that has to change is that everyone on the team must be willing to open their comments and edits to everyone else while the document is still in progress.

It is for firms that are facing this kind of disaster scenario—spending a lot of money on new technology and yet getting nothing back for doing so—that I wrote SharePoint Roadmap. Hence my second book is “another SharePoint resource”. There are six focal chapters in SharePoint Roadmap for Collaboration:

- Chapter 2: Discusses improving collaboration between people. This chapter talks through a number of models about how to think about this.

- Chapter 3: Talks about where SharePoint natually shines in supporting team collaboration, and how to address some of its shortcomings through add-on products.

- Chapter 4: All about governance. I argue that optimizing the technical governance of SharePoint isn’t enough, and instead outline what is required. I also propose a structure and decision process for making governance decisions.

- Chapter 5: Engaging with the business. Once you have a good sense of what SharePoint is capable of doing, you need to explore where and how those capabilities can used to do business better. This requires engaging with business groups and teams, and I outline a number of approaches.

- Chapter 6: User adoption strategies. There’s little point in doing all of the stuff we do with SharePoint if no one uses it! This chapter talks through a number of approaches to cultivating user adoption. Also within this chapter, I talk about the meta-message of my first book, Seamless Teamwork.

- Chapter 7: Getting started. The final focal chapter talks about how to get started. I propose that you play a game of SharePoint baseball, with base one being a pilot project.

In finishing, two things. First, to learn more about SharePoint Roadmap for Collaboration, visit http://www.sharepointroadmap.com/ and download Chapter 1. It’s free, although registration is required. And second, I’d love to speak with you about what’s happening with collaboration tools and approaches at your place of work. Please drop me a line at michael [at] michaelsampson [dot] net if we can talk.