The more SharePoint opportunities I visit, the more concerned I become about the way in which people are treating SharePoint implementations in their organisations. In most cases I see the IT department driving the project, which is not all together a bad thing, if it were not for the fact that they want to define how for example the Finance department works. I know us IT folk are really smart but in all honesty there are subject matter experts that know their domain far better than we ever would. Why? Specialisation. At the end of the day one has to ask the question, who am I trying to improve productivity levels for by implementing SharePoint for the Finance department? A seemly silly question, but you’ll be surprised how many people get the focus wrong!

The key is to involve the individuals for whom you are building the solution, regardless of whether you are simply addressing collaboration or even more complex capabilities such as business intelligence. Simple enough right? Not so fast! The really tricky part comes in making sure that the technology solution you implement is in fact what the business user asked for. For any seasoned IT professional we all know this is easier said than done! My suggestion is follow a good methodology for implementation, which ensures that all the relevant parties are involved at the right times in the process, thereby ensuring the correct solution is implemented successfully. At bSOLVe we utilise a simple cycle, which ensures when implemented iteratively that we have “dotted our i’s and crossed our t’s” so to speak.

• Asses
• Analyse
• Specify
• Plan
• Implement
• Support

If you do not follow the correct implementation procedure you will find out that one of the most powerful Microsoft products available today, can become your worst nightmare! As IT professionals we need to be aware of the fact that our industry is changing and with it come products that can no longer be successfully implemented by technicians alone. Maturity levels among information workers are improving meaning many no longer accept or need the basic and new features that were always sold. The features need to be adapted to suite their role and the business they work for providing “capability” and not just features. We are entering a new world where information value is very real and the information worker is more demanding than ever before. Ignore their needs and implement SharePoint like any other infrastructure technology project and it will fail!