SharePoint User Adoption - Introduce value not change

Most employees in an organization are generally busy today. Most of them have a defined way of performing their day-to-day operations and are comfortable with their approach. Keeping this in mind, IT introduces a new technology product which has exciting cool and advanced features.
Now, how does an employee react to it ?

It's very likely that this new product and its cool features create an excitement among a group of people. Probably not with the majority. This group which is small in number, we refer to them as early adopters. Largely  the IT department of the organization and few business users.The majority of users will not accept it just for the new features or for the sheer innovation. If you could explain how it could add value to them or how it could make their life easier is when it will be accepted.

Its never about the machines, its about the performance of the business and users using the machines.


SharePoint is no different. In an Enterprise where SharePoint  is used as an Intranet platform, should add value and keep the employees engaged. It should help employees perform their day to day activities more expeditiously and improve their performance. It is easier said than done. Check Top 5 mistakes in Driving SharePoint Adoption. 


How do we improve it?

1. Give people a reason to visit it more often
Do not restrict SharePoint to just a system of records or a portal for corporate communications to publish news and announcements.  We need to keep the system more engaging and create the stickiness.

• Have most important and regularly used tools on the home page as widgets. Could be my daily tasks, bookmarked pages, leave information, Lunch menu widget which people can refer to every day at around 12:30 PM before going to lunch. Little things like these make a difference.
• Create non institutionalized communities . E.g. Skiing group. Let people connect to like-minded people. Recognize and reward people who are participating in forums and contributing on a regular basis.
• Some of the other enterprise social features are mandatory to increase the employees engagement and interactions . For e.g wikis,microblogging, blogs for storytelling and sharing personal knowledge and experiences. Note: Communities, rewards and recognition system is in built in SharePoint Online and SharePoint 2013. 

2. Make information more easily available
 I came across this interesting study from Mckinsey through one of my colleague's blog on  How We Screwed Up Our Intranet and the Lessons We Learnt. "Organizations can achieve 25% less time spent on emails, 35% less time spent searching for information and 20-25% improvement in knowledge worker productivity by using social technologies". 
There is a  lot of data available in enterprise systems. An employee ends up spending a lot more time than required in getting the information. Information present on the system should be easily accessible and presented.     

• Surface structured data from other systems on SharePoint. Integrate Line Of Business systems. E.g. HR data, Learning content.
• Search in SharePoint is very advanced and technically good. But that alone would not help users. Map it your business by defining the metadata and taxonomy, which could then be used for  effective searching.
• Access your files on SharePoint through windows explorer as if it is locally stored on your computer. Also access content offline using SkyDrive Pro - SkyDrive for the Enterprise.
• Connect SharePoint to Office. Access SharePoint data through a commonly used tool like Outlook.
• Branding cannot be ignored.  Have a standard intranet taxonomy which helps you easily access and navigate to different departments in the organization. 

Note: SkyDrive Pro is available in SharePoint Online and SharePoint 2013. 

3. Training should be contextual and no day long SharePoint training.
When we introduce a new technology product, one thing we do not invest  as much as we should on is training. It is a key in driving adoption. We could have features and  tools on Intranet which add value to users but until trained to use them all of it could be underutilized or go unnoticed. 

Context based training  is important. 

• Business users do not need plain technical training about  check-in, check-out, version history, lookup columns,  alerts, workflows in SharePoint. It’s an absolute No- No. Create scenarios which are more relevant to the business or to the day to day activities and then map it to SharePoint entities. It always works.
• Start a discussion forum among business users. Hear them out. This generally helps you to come up with a more relevant FAQ's which could help business users get answers to the basic queries. I have worked on SharePoint adoption projects in the past. 

Business users listen to you only if they find 3 things .Value, value and value.

It is not the 'change' that is  key but the 'value' that is adds.

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Architecture : Logical vs Physical

If you are a developer or an aspiring architect you might have come across situations where your architects use technical jargons which you are sometimes not completely aware of. 2 of the common terms used are Logical and Physical architecture. I will try and explain this in simple terms less than 50 words each. Hope this helps you understand the difference between the 2.


Logical Architecture  

Is a diagram of how the “components” (physical and virtual) interact with one another.  What role does each component play?  Who can access/use this component? How is it stored?  How is it secured, etc.  This may be a separate map, or it may be a “larger” map that includes your Physical Architecture Map.

Physical Architecture 

(a.k.a. Topology) is just the layout of your physical environment.  You’ll do well to label each component with commonly needed (by the admins anyway) information, such as Server Names, IP Addresses, Server Model, RAM, etc

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Content Management and Document Management

Consultants and developers working on SharePoint or on any other CMS system might hear words like content management and document management. Now, what these really are? Let's try and understand this better. 

Content Management

Typically digital content is created by one or more authors. Over time that content may be edited. One or more individuals may provide some editorial oversight thereby approving the content for publication. Publishing may take many forms. Publishing may be the act of pushing content out to others, or simply granting digital access rights to certain content to a particular person or group of persons. Later that content may be superseded by another form of content and thus retired or removed from use.

 

Content management is an inherently collaborative process. It often consists of the following basic roles and responsibilities:

• Creator - responsible for creating and editing content.
• Editor - responsible for tuning the content message and the style of delivery, including translation and localization.
• Publisher - responsible for releasing the content for use.
• Administrator - responsible for managing access permissions to folders and files, usually accomplished by assigning access rights to user groups or roles. Admins may also assist and support users in various ways.
• Consumer, viewer or guest- the person who reads or otherwise takes in content after it is published or shared

A critical aspect of content management is the ability to manage versions of content as it evolves  Authors and editors often need to restore older versions of edited products due to a process failure or an undesirable series of edits.

Another equally important aspect of content management involves the creation, maintenance, and application of review standards. Each member of the content creation and review process has a unique role and set of responsibilities in the development and/or publication of the content. Each review team member requires clear and concise review standards which must be maintained on an ongoing basis to ensure the long-term consistency and health of the knowledge base.

Document Management System

Document management is one of the oldest of the content management disciplines - and was essentially born out of the need to manage ever growing amounts of information being created within organisations. In a world where only hardcopy information existed - there was always a physical limit to the amount of information that could be stored and retrieved. It could be argued that Microsoft with the introduction of MS-Office and MS-Windows released users from this physical limit - and with the exponential increase in information that has resulted, document management software has become an intrinsic part of most organizations as they seek to manage the vast quantities of data they hold.

Ability to maintain different versions of the document, check-out/check-in , publish , approve  all of which are essentials of a good document management systems.

 

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SharePoint 2010 Workflow - Things to know

Workflows in SharePoint Server 2010 enable enterprises to reduce the amount of unnecessary interactions between people as they perform business processes. For example, to reach a decision, groups typically follow a series of steps. The steps can be a formal, standard operating procedure, or an informal implicitly understood way to operate. Collectively, the steps represent a business process. The number of human interactions that occur in business processes can inhibit speed and the quality of decisions. Software that simplifies and manages this "human workflow" enables the automation of interactions among groups who participate in the process. This automation results in more speed, overall effectiveness of the interactions, and often a reduction in errors.

SharePoint Foundation 2010 workflows are made available to end-users at the list or document-library level. Workflows can be added to documents or list items. Workflow can also be added to content types. Multiple workflows may be available for a given item

Workflow types: Declarative and compiled

Declarative - SP Designer WF

Complied - VS WF

A compiled workflow is stored on a server running SharePoint Server 2010 as a prec ompiled dll file whereas a declarative workflow is deployed on a server running SharePoint Server 2010 as an Extensible Object Markup Language (XOML) file and compiled in the content database each time an instance of the workflow is started

Important Points (Read it once you have a fair amount understanding about Workflow)

 

• Three State: workflow is only supported on lists, not libraries 
• You can use the prototyping functionality of Visio 2010 through SharePoint Designer 2010 only if you are running the Premium edition of Visio 2010.
• SharePoint Designer 2010 does not support creating reusable workflows for sites. Instead, you can use Visual Studio 2010 to create them.

 

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bLync and you know: Using data analysis to determine work pattern of an organization.

Does your organization use a communicator for internal communication? If yes and if the communicator is  Microsoft Lync( formerly known as OCS ), here is a product idea for you and your organization.


As we all know Microsoft Lync’ status best tells our availability to our colleagues at any given point in time. Lync automatically looks into our calendars, and updates the status when we are in a meeting, or on a call, or working away on our machines. We sometimes update this on our own when we are in our deep thinking mode and update this to ‘Do not disturb’. Don’t we?

If we think about it, this little jelly-bean like thing is pretty much an indicator of how our day is progressing – when were are available, when we are busy. I have used this to understand when I work best without interruptions or when I take my lunch and coffee breaks.

And this has proven the case with fellow colleagues as well. With almost an 85-90% accuracy, it’s fair to say that we can tell how the organization is doing in a day.

This is my proposition: When and how often is your organization bLync-ing in a day.

Organizations will know:
1. How many employees are early starters, against late night workers. Should we delay our stand-up meetings?
2. How are working hours overlapping across geographies. When is the best time for a customer meeting between India and the US?
3. When are most people available. Should staff mailers go right after lunch?
4. What is the longest stretch of time when people are offline. Should we shut down for Dussera or Diwali?

Employees will know when they are most productive:
1. Am I less distracted when I work from home or at office?
2. Are all my project meetings estimated for in the project plan?
3. What are my most productive hours in a day?

Now that we know how the tip of the iceberg looks like, we can build on this mine of data to come up with reports and analytics on how the organization likes to work, when it likes to work.

I am always open to ideating, let’s get a coffee and you can tell me what you think, and how we can make this better and more useful for you.
Or, email works just as well: prasadmp.net@gmail.com

bLync once, and know always.

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