Secrets Of Successful Portal Implementations Dec2008

Audience : Business/IT Pro/Developer Description Practical experience indicates that technology has only a small impact on the success of SharePoint solutions; organizational and political (process and people) strategies have a much greater impact and as a result, a comprehensive portal strategy is vital for success. This session defines an approach to: … If you build a MOSS 2007 portal solution, will users come? Define optimal, workable collaboration strategies Build portal and collaboration solutions people want to use Create a framework for measuring the value of your portal investment Achieve a balance between culture, process, and technology to successfully implement your portal or collaboration solution

Susan Hanley President, Susan Hanley LLC sue@susanhanley.com (301) 469-0770 (o) (301) 442-0127 (m) www.susanhanley.com Blog: http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=sharepoint

Introduction Key Elements of Successful Solutions Know your stakeholders Understand their business objectives Be prepared for Web 2.0 questions Define and monitor measures of success Have a plan for governance and ongoing content management Plan rollout, launch, training, and persistent communications Summary Questions

Unlike the new General Ledger, Procurement, or Accounts Payable system, you can’t mandate the use of the new collaboration system – there is always another option Users need to understand the benefits to them – not the team, not the organization – to me personally You may need to jump start with incentives Consider incorporating personal performance measures to ensure that the importance of the new solution is demonstrated in more than a newsletter and an enthusiastic project team

Identify Your Stakeholders Understand Their Business Objectives Understand How Your Solution Fits in a Web 2.0 World – BE PREPARED! Identify How Success Will Be Measured Prepare a Governance Plan Define Procedures for Content Management Plan Roll-Out and Launch

Who are they? What are their roles in the organization? Do you have stakeholders outside the organization? What makes them unique?

Are all users equally comfortable with new technology? This can have a significant impact on your training and communications plan. Do they have a compelling business need to learn a new way of collaborating? Will they all engage with the new solution in the same way? They spend over $100 more a year on footwear than on vegetables.* They don’t floss regularly They live within 20 minutes of a *“The Average American: The Extraordinary Search for the Nation’s Most Ordinary Citizen” by Kevin O’Keefe

Sponsoring Executive(s) – be sure you REALLY understand what they think the project is and their vision for what will happen when the solution is implemented Business Unit leaders – especially HR and Corporate Communications Content Contributors and Owners Project Managers/Team Leaders who will own team sites Department Managers who will publish on intranet pages Partners Customers

For example: Improve collaboration with partners Searchable central repository of marketing assets One-stop shop for firm-wide information Share best practices and collaborate across teams with online collaboration workspaces Replace shared drives with searchable, organized document repositories Document management Business process dashboard

Provide easier and more timely access to the information employees need to get their work done Provide easier and more effective mechanisms to move work between business entities , such as self-service for customers or partners, enabling outsourcing by providing business partners with access to a collaboration environment or business data on an extranet Provide an organized "one stop shop" for information by making it easier to find authoritative information Improve the ability to share and exchange information across the organization by providing an electronic publishing method that is easy for users to leverage Improve the "time to talent," the speed with which new employees become productive Capture knowledge of retiring employees in a collaborative environment

Maximize the reuse of best practices across the enterprise, enabling the organization to replicate successful business practices in all geographies Reduce training costs for enterprise applications by providing a consistent user interface to all applications Improve time to market for proposals and contracts by providing easier access to reusable assets Improve organizational learn ing by providing easier access to critical information and organizational memory Improve customer service by providing direct access to the information customers need Improve project execution by providing an opportunity for work teams to collaborate and to electronically store project information in fully searchable, organized team sites

You’ll definitely get asked, so be prepared! It may not be clear when the time is just right. According to Forrester, “in 2008, companies with 1,000 or more employees to spend approximately $110 million for building externally facing social networks, while only $60 million for the internal variety.” * Blogs Wikis RSS *Source: CIO Magazine, April 2008; http://www.cio.com/article/344167/Adoption_of_Corporate_Social_Networks_Remains_Sluggish_/1

Stakeholder questions and requirements: “ Should we have allow blogging? Who should blog?” “ We need a wiki.” (Do you really?) We need Facebook for the enterprise!” “Should we be paying attention to Facebook (or LinkedIn or Plaxo, etc.)?” SharePoint and Web 2.0 MySite can be leveraged like an internal Facebook – but be careful, don’t assume that your private network will replace the public network Primary value proposition is integration with Office. Web 2.0 software is generally not powered by installed applications. Some of the pure play Web 2.0 vendors (Atlassian – SharePoint Connector – embed Confluence wiki; NewsGator – Social Sites 2.0 – tag clouds, mini-profiles, social networks) have formal integration with MOSS

Train : Teach appropriate use of social networking technologies – what is ok and what is not ok to say about work. Explain legal risks. Consider what might happen if information is relevant in a lawsuit – employees might have to give up personal information like passwords. Influence : Show how to use the tools appropriately without giving away too much. Monitor : Consider having teams who monitor Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. for what employees are saying to make sure policies are being followed. Read : Check out the cover story by Kim Nash in the November 15, 2008 issue of CIO Magazine.

… the same way you plan for successful knowledge management projects UNDERSTAND THE BUSINESS CASE – if you can’t identify the business case, focus on improvements to the features you already have Think big, start small Select the initial project carefully: Impact (ROI) Transferable Chief Sponsor/Advocate with Power “ Do-able” Think through the consequences Put someone in charge Monitor – be prepared to change Don’t forget – WIIFM Resource: How to Get the Most Value from Social Computing for Business with Microsoft

Track each measure to your business objectives. For each objective, identify: Possible Measure: Quantitative and Qualitative Capture Frequency and Technique Issues and Challenges Target and Goal

Pre-planning . Use scenarios and simulations to explore projected measure results and effects. Start up . Anecdotes and qualitative metrics are most valuable to convince people of benefits. Pilot . Use definitive metrics to show real value to business objectives. Growth and Adoption . Use mixture of metrics to show value across the organization. Time Solution Maturity

For example: if your business goal is to “maximize the reuse of best practices across the enterprise” Possible Measures (Adoption phase): Quantitative: Number of downloads of best practice or re-usable assets Qualitative: Usage anecdotes where users can describe in quantitative terms how a MOSS asset that they re-used contributed to business objectives. Capture Frequency: Monthly

Issues and Challenges: Frequent downloads are a proxy for content value, indicating that the content is delivering value to users. Gathering anecdotes is a labor intensive process and may require some creativity to obtain. Target: Look for an upward trend in the number of downloads for new content or new portals. Look for steady state activity in more mature environments. Targets should be set based on the maturity of the solution and the strategic importance of the content. Targets for success stories might be based on total "value" represented in the stories collected and/or based on the number of stories documented.

I joined the organization on March 16 without previous experience. After one week of training, I joined a project team. After one day of training on the project, I was assigned a task to learn a particular technology that was new to everyone on the team. I was given a bunch of books and told that I had three days to learn how to create a project using this technology. In my first week of training, I remembered learning about the company’s expertise locator. I sent an e-mail to four people I found asking for their help. One of them sent me a document containing exactly what I wanted. Instead of three days, my task was completed in one-half a day

Identify a set of core employee tasks. Determine how frequently employees perform these tasks. Find the loaded hourly cost of an average employee. Observe and time people as they perofrm the defined tasks in your current design (a simple stopwatch will suffice). Multiply the following numbers to determine hoe much it costs the company to have employees accomplish the tasks using the current design: Time on task Each task’s frequency Hourly rate Number of intranet users Adjust the cost estimate to account for the tasks you didn’t measuer. For example, if you measured 1/3 of the core tasks, multiply your measured numbers by 3 to get a decent estimate for all tasks. Repeat after launching your new design or new portal. Subtract the differences for an estimated ROI. (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/portals.html)

Avoid portal, team site, and content "sprawl" Ensure that content quality is maintained for the life of the portal Consistently provide a high quality user experience by ensuring that the governance plan is followed Establish clear decision making authority and escalation procedures so that policy violations are dealt with and conflicts are resolved on a timely basis Ensure that the portal strategy is aligned with business objectives so that it continuously delivers business value

Vision Statement – high level assertions about what you want to achieve with the portal initiative. For example: “ Our new solution will be the primary source of all information employees need to do their jobs.” “ The solution will be the primary means of sharing documents within the enterprise.” Principles – express corporate preferences that support the vision statements and principles that guide the design. For example: “ We will use a federated model of content management wherever possible.” (Corporate provides guidelines and optimal standards, but individual businesses may vary from the corporate guidelines if absolutely necessary from a business perspective.) “ Department-level decisions will be vetted by other departments. However, no single unit will have a veto over decisions.”

Consistent user experience Design with the end user in mind – minimize the need for training Standards tied to scope (audience) Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should (“with great power comes great responsibility”) Existing rules still apply (privacy, use of IT resources, records retention) Default access is “read only” for all – apply additional “read” security only as needed

No e-mail attachments – send links Publish once, link many Use Metadata, not Folders – more flexible in responding to a dynamic environment Content management is everyone’s responsibility but site owners are accountable Content owners are responsible for ensuring their content is managed according to corporate records retention policies. The “no folders” paradigm shift – likely to be your biggest challenge: relevant examples are critical!

Policies – specific guidelines reflecting firm decisions the organization has made. For example: “ The team collaboration and document management solution of choice is from Microsoft. We will use SharePoint for all new projects where this functionality is needed, unless a specific case is made to use another one.” “ Established implementations that do not use the preferred products will continue to be used until they need major updates.” “ In order to optimize user experience, download time for users must be taken into consideration when submitting large documents. File size guidelines are ….” “ File names should be topical and descriptive. Generally, file names should not include dates or versions. If a file name must contain dates, then the following format must be followed to ensure consistent sorting, for example: File Name_YYYY_MM_DD.”

Procedures – define how to do specific operations. For example: How to upload or create content How to start a workflow How to remove content How to add, change, or remove items from the corporate taxonomy Roles and Responsibilities – define how each member of the firm is responsible for ensuring the success of the intranet portal solution. The next page describes the typical roles and responsibilities for a SharePoint-based portal solution.

Executive Sponsor Portal Governance Board Portal Owner (Business) Portal Administrator (Technology) Site Owner Users (Visitors, Contributors) Technology Support Team

A good Content Management plan addresses both the design of content as well as its ongoing maintenance. As general guiding principles, content in the portal needs to meet the following characteristics: Usable Credible Relevant

Communications – persistent Training – don’t underestimate the training requirements for the SharePoint “paradigm shift;” “bite sized chunks” http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/gearup Launch and Content Conversion – clean first! User Support – community of practice Incentives and Rewards – make it fun! Measurement – for funding and feedback

The paradigm shift Don’t underestimate how hard it will be for users to understand the concept of metadata Assume all users are from Missouri! Plan a variety of types and opportunities for training. One size does not fit all! Security Security concepts are not straightforward for most users Information overload Think about initial training for the “basics” followed by shorter training modules offered “just in time” for interested users

Portal and collaboration software can be expensive to purchase and integrate. If you want to build a successful solution, you need a carefully defined strategy. The portal must be somebody’s job – on an ongoing basis. Ensure that the MOSS rollout has a clear connection to business goals and objectives. Understand how success will be measured. Develop a method to identify and quantify pragmatic, tangible benefits for the MOSS solution.

Establish a governance framework to ensure quality and relevance of content and to ensure that all users understand their roles and responsibilities. Make sure that you have a Governance Board with a strong advocate in the role of executive Sponsor. Keep your governance model simple. Portals need a strong governance model, but they don't need complicated models with lots of bureaucracy.

Plan your roll out carefully – don’t assume you won’t need training! Don’t assume that everything stops after launch. Keep in touch with your users. Make sure you have a plan for collecting feedback on an ongoing basis. Just because the intranet exists, it doesn't mean that everything should be on it. Carefully assess what should be on the intranet portal and what shouldn't.

Secrets Of Successful Portal Implementations Dec2008

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