Column Two

January 27, 2012

I’ll be running a masterclass in London on March 6th

Categorised under: Conferences & presentations

Keynoting the Congres Intranet in Utrecht on March 13th will bring me back to Europe in a few months. Since it’s a long way to come, I’ve organised a few other activities while I’m in the area.

This includes a Designing intranets that work masterclass in London, on March 6th. This is a great one-day session, covering key design techniques and sharing screenshots from a wide range of organisations. It’s also a unique opportunity to uncover ideas, approaches and best practices to ensure that your intranet project is a success.

This workshop will answer many common questions, including:

• What should go on the intranet home page?
• How to determine the right structure and navigation?
• How important is the look and feel of the intranet?
• What designs can really help staff find what they need?
• What techniques will help to deliver a great intranet?

More information (and register online)

PS. I have a very small number of free days that week, so please do get in touch if you’d like a day of in-house workshops, mentoring or consulting.

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January 24, 2012

Intranets2012 now open for registrations!

Categorised under: Conferences & presentations

Last year we launched a brand new conference for Australia: Intranets2011. The first true intranet conference in the region, it was a huge success. Never before has there been such a buzz about the future of intranets.

This year, Intranets2012 (May 16-18) will be even bigger and better, with another extraordinary mix of local and international speakers.

Registration for Intranets2012 opens today, with a great early-bird rate.

See leading experts such as Martin White (UK), William Amurgis (USA) & James Robertson (Australia) keynoting the event, with a myriad of well respected practitioners taking to the stage throughout the event. We’ve already published a draft conference programme and details on the post-conference workshops.

See you at the conference!

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January 24, 2012

Why we’re writing a lot about SharePoint in 2012

Categorised under: Intranets, SharePoint

You may’ve noticed a big increase in our blogging about SharePoint in 2012. There’s a very good reason for this.

It’s an exciting but challenging time for intranets. While SharePoint is just one of many intranet solutions in the marketplace, it has gained real momentum, spreading throughout the globe.

This has introduced a whole range of new possibilities for intranets, particularly in the collaboration and business productivity space. It has also injected new energy into intranets, something that has been long overdue.

But let’s face it, SharePoint isn’t a simple platform. Many teams are finding themselves lost in the huge spread of functionality, or baffled about how best to tackle the necessary customisation and development. Too many projects are missing the mark, or reinventing the wheel.

While extraordinary SharePoint intranets have been delivered, there have also been failures. SharePoint implementers have rapidly built up their technical expertise, but technology is just one element of a successful intranet.

For over a decade, our role has been to help teams deliver intranets that work. Intranets that help staff do their jobs, deliver concrete business benefits, and are easy to use. We look across many organisations, and uncover what works (and what doesn’t), and communicate this to the industry as a whole.

Continuing this, our job in the SharePoint intranet space is to cut through complexity, providing answers, examples, models and methodologies. As highlighted in our last post, we provide the 10-15% that doubles the success of SharePoint projects.

We’ve not lost sight of the fact that there are valid alternatives to SharePoint, but neither are we going to stand by and see intranet teams struggle needlessly with their SharePoint projects.

We’re here to help. Watch this space for much more to come.

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January 23, 2012

Spend 10-15% of SharePoint intranet projects on planning and design

Categorised under: Content management, Intranets, SharePoint, Usability & user-centered design

The classic texts of project management outline the importance of initial planning and design activities. While they only consist of 10-30% of the project, they lay the groundwork for everything to come.

This is no different in the world of SharePoint intranets. Quite the contrary: with the breadth of SharePoint, and the effort and cost often required, it’s even more important to start with a clear plan.

Based on our experience across many organisations, this is our rule of thumb:

Spend 10-15% of the budget of SharePoint intranet projects on planning and design.

What does this mean in practice? Let’s explore a range of projects at different scales, with some example activities (these lists are not compreshensive):

Small, mostly out-of-the-box deployment

Total spend: $25k
10-15% on planning & design: $3.5k

The goal is to deploy a simple intranet using out-of-the-box SharePoint capabilities wherever possible, using configuration rather than development or customisation. Software licenses may be minimal, with external developer support around deployment and setup.

Planning and design activities should include:

• determine an overall scope (what will the intranet do?)
• confirm what SharePoint functionality will be most useful and successful
• learn lessons from past intranet projects

Medium-sized corporate intranet

Total spend: $150k
10-15% on planning & design: $20k

A typical intranet project, deploying SharePoint as the platform for a redesigned corporate intranet. Core SharePoint features are supplemented with development to deliver key capabilities. Typically involves a mix of publishing and collaboration.

Planning and design activities should include:

• uncover and confirming staff needs
• determine an overall intranet strategy and scope
• develop a concrete project plan (beyond just technical aspects)
• select key SharePoint functionality required
• target customisation and development activities
• apply best-practice techniques to determine navigation and design
• establish simple but effective governance and ongoing management

Strategic intranet project

Total spend: $500k
10-15% on planning & design: $75k

Larger intranet projects, either deploying SharePoint in big organisations, or aiming to go beyond a “standard” intranet. Significant amounts of customisation and development will be used to meet specific business needs, and to provide a strong foundation for future growth. Significant use of all aspects of SharePoint, including integration with other systems.

Planning and design activities should include:

• create a common vision amongst all stakeholders
• determine an overall intranet strategy and scope
• create a roadmap for short- and long-term activities
• establish pilots for leading-edge features
• conduct a full user-centred design process for the intranet
• establish the best project team
• build in-house intranet expertise and knowledge
• execute a change management and adoption plan
• establish robust governance
• draw on global intranet best practices

10-15% of planning doubles the business benefits

While getting the technical deployment of SharePoint right is obviously crucial, the best implementation in the world is worth nothing if it misses the mark when it comes to business and staff needs.

To often, implementation starts before the most basic of questions are answered (such as: what will the intranet actually do?). Without an overall vision, plan and scope, it becomes very difficult to make the hundreds of practical decisions that are involved in deploying a SharePoint intranet.

For this reason, this is our experience:

The 10-15% spent on design and planning doubles the business benefits delivered by a SharePoint intranet project.

Time and time again, we’ve seen a small amount of up-front planning and design work have a huge impact on SharePoint intranet projects. The project progresses faster, with less stress and uncertainty, delivering a result that works well for staff and the business.

We do the 10-15%

Step Two have been the leading experts in the intranet space for over a decade. Our role is to know what works (and what doesn’t), and to provide practical methodologies for intranet teams to follow.

In a SharePoint project, we don’t deploy or write code (there are plenty of people who do). Our role is to work with or alongside the geeks, providing the 10-15% of planning and design activities that ensures project success.

We draw on our unique experience, insight into intranet projects across hundreds of organisations, and a clear understanding of the SharePoint platform. Bringing this together, we provide the techniques, answers, examples and screenshots that maximise the value of SharePoint investments.

We can also provide ongoing support, to keep things on track, and to see the project through to a successful conclusion.

Want to know more? Get in touch

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January 18, 2012

How to create the right sites on your SharePoint intranet

Categorised under: Content management, Intranets, SharePoint

When you want to create a new site in your SharePoint intranet, this is the page you’re presented with. It’s pretty daunting for an inexperienced site administrator or content owner:

Should I create a team site or a document workplace?
Would a social meeting workplace be more relevant than a decision meeting workspace?
Maybe I need a blog?
Perhaps just start with a blank site and build from there?

This dialog box gives few clues and little guidance. While nothing is ever set in stone, picking the wrong initial choice will reduce the chances of successful adoption and use.

While this kind of complexity is common across many products, not just SharePoint, it generally leads to patchy and inconsistent intranets that are cluttered with under-used sites.

There are three strategies that can be taken:

1. governance
2. site creation workflows
3. training and support

1. Governance

As discussed in Collaboration Roadmap written by Michael Sampson, it’s important to be clear about who has the rights to actually create a new site on your SharePoint intranet. Will every user be able to create a new site, or will this be restricted to a handful of central administrators?

While there is no one right answer, what’s needed in all cases is good governance. This provide a set of basic guidelines and processes that cover:

• creating new sites
• maintaining and ultimately closing sites
• what functionality can be used
• the rights and authorities granted to site owners

The smaller the number of staff able to create sites, the less training and support is required. (Although the result may be a bottleneck that generates widespread frustration.)

2. Site creation workflows

Another approach is to put some structure around creating new sites. This can include a tailored workflow and approval process that guides users step-by-step through the necessary decisions.

Screenshot courtesy of Coca-Cola.

For example, Coca-Cola in the US has created a “Teamsite Wizard”. This asks a number of key questions, with supporting help content. This makes it easier for staff to create a team site, while ensuring that important information is collected about each site.

Screenshots courtesy of Standard Chartered.

Standard Chartered in the UK goes a step further, creating a fully-fledged process that actively guides staff towards the right choices. Governance is covered off early in the process, and then the user is helped to choose the right template. Key details are then collected for the new site, before going into an approval workflow.

These types of approaches help to put structure around site creation, and are particularly appropriate in larger SharePoint intranet deployments where there is inherently less control around creating new areas.

3. Training and support

SharePoint is a new tool for most, and users will be unfamiliar with what it can do, and how to do it. One of the most obvious ways of addressing this knowledge gap is through training and support.

The work done by Transfield Services, showcased in the Governance and support for SharePoint teamsites report, provides a great example.

Extensive training materials are provided online, written in plain language, and supported by short training videos. Following the learning curve of new administrators, information is provided in bite-size chunks, with links to more in-depth materials where required.

While there is a growing body of excellent third-party training materials and books, Transfield chose to create custom documentation to match the specific functionality they’d turned on (and avoiding the features they turned off). This led to a highly successful deployment, with excellent levels of adoption and use.

Consider all three options

The options presented are not either-or. As the size and scale of a SharePoint intranet increases, it becomes vital to establish all three elements. Even when the IT team pre-creates a set of tailored template choices, users can still struggle to choose the right option.

Look for best practices established by other organisations, and set aside resources to make your SharePoint deployment successful, beyond just turning on the technology and hoping for the best.

What have you seen work?
What have you done on your SharePoint intranet?

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