Yesterday I gave a presentation in Denmark to a diverse group of organisations, all wrestling with SharePoint. While they’d all found SharePoint to be useful, the common story was the challenge of explosive growth in team sites.

Over a 2 hour session, we explored practical ways of bringing order to chaos. Some of these involved technology fixes, while others focused on governance, training and management.

My key points from the session:

• While the growth of SharePoint teams sites demonstrate that they meet a need, left unmanaged, the fragmentation overwhelms the value.
• The starting point is to distinguish between two worlds of SharePoint governance.
• There must be a clear purpose for sites, whether shop windowsor back office areas.
• Site creation is very important, and ideally automated through a wizard, and supported by effective policies.
• Staff require training and support if they’re to succeed with SharePoint, particularly when they’re expected to work differently than they have in the past (as shown in the Transfield case study).
• SharePoint should be launched and communicated effectively, such as the great Rijkswaterstaat video.

Of course, this only scratches the surface of the topic of SharePoint governance. But hopefully everyone on the day walked away with at least a few ideas of practical steps they can take to get the most out of their existing SharePoint investment.