- Organizations have and generate overwhelming amounts of information, proliferating in a number of disparate systems.
- The new generation of content management systems is designed to personalize the user experience with great selections of features and add-ons. But choices mean understanding business goals and information requirements and carefully planning how this new powerful system will look and feel.
- Many content management teams assume they should just transfer folder structures and existing content into SharePoint, but getting maximum power out of SharePoint means moving away from folders and org chart-based silos and toward a meaningful user experience powered by good structures.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- Information governance and information architecture are complex ideas to grasp and implement. They need time and special expertise at the table. A successful rollout of SharePoint depends on good, thought-out structures.
- SharePoint is primarily a business platform. It’s meant to be configured and maintained by business leaders who know their operations best, needing less dependency on IT. This transfer of responsibility and culture shift requires an effective training plan and the active presence of executive sponsors to help the business bridge that chasm.
- Include Teams in the plan. Microsoft's vision for its set of services means defining how SharePoint fits into the information landscape along with OneDrive and Teams. Look at the package deal to ensure all the services align.
Impact and Result
- The business leads decisions about structuring content.
- There is a standardized set of structures, rules, and practices for managing and growing content services in SharePoint.
- A management team of business information owners leads the structure and ongoing development of the content management system, supported by IT and SMEs.
- Users are informed and engaged, with clear instructions for interacting with SharePoint documents and guidelines for creating team sites.
- The organization understands its information communities and requirements.
- Project and governance leads understand concepts such as unstructured data and records.
Member Testimonials
After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this blueprint and what our clients have to say.
9.3/10
Overall Impact
$16,338
Average $ Saved
9
Average Days Saved
Client
Experience
Impact
$ Saved
Days Saved
Wiginton Corporation
Guided Implementation
10/10
$1,949
10
Caribbean Public Health Agency
Guided Implementation
10/10
$51,999
20
His in-depth expertise and knowledge of SharePoint allowed us to make informed decisions, optimizing our SharePoint environment for our specific ne... Read More
Technical Safety BC
Guided Implementation
10/10
$50,000
20
Michigan Court of Appeals
Guided Implementation
7/10
N/A
N/A
The call with Andrea Malick was beneficial and gave us a lot of information to consider. Her suggestions have given us a good starting point of wh... Read More
Caribbean Public Health Agency
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
1
Best: Very knowledgeable agent. Excellent support staff
Technessity, LLC
Guided Implementation
10/10
$7,559
4
Technessity, LLC
Guided Implementation
10/10
$14,489
10
Ibrahim was able to validate my assumptions and propose extended solutions. He saved me time and money in supporting my client.
Canadian Commercial Corporation
Guided Implementation
8/10
$1,600
10
Caribbean Public Health Agency
Guided Implementation
10/10
$2,479
2
British Columbia Industry Training Authority
Guided Implementation
8/10
N/A
5
Andrea is very knowledgeable on the topic. The call provided many information and reference to review to build the plan. It is a complex project an... Read More
Workshop: Effectively Use SharePoint as Your ECM Solution
Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Module 1: SharePoint Foundations
The Purpose
- Introduce key SharePoint and ECM concepts.
- Build a management team/governance committee of decision makers from the lines of business.
- Define how to communicate major change to users.
- Create vision for SharePoint content services.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Accountabilities assigned for during the project and ongoing
- Understanding of the size of the work involved in building the SharePoint solution
- Rules and guidelines for the setup and use of SharePoint
Activities
Outputs
Review SharePoint and ECM concepts.
- High-level information landscape
Identify governance committee members and SMEs.
- ECM governance charter
Develop the vision for the SharePoint program.
- SharePoint vision and mission statement
Determine approach to engaging and educating users.
- Communication plan
Develop policies.
- SharePoint policy (or information management policies)
Module 2: SharePoint Information Architecture
The Purpose
- Understand current information communities and workflows.
- Outline information architecture work items.
- Understand concepts like metadata, records management retention, standard terminology.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Best-practice approach to building information architecture (IA)
- Plan for building content structures
- Understanding of expertise and time required to build IA foundation
- Management team has the knowledge to negotiate with technology and service providers
Activities
Outputs
Gather key use cases.
- List of each stakeholder’s top three priority use cases
Decide scope from among use cases.
- Pilot scope workflows
- Pilot scope documents
Audit key content.
Review IA best practices.
Module 3: SharePoint Inventory and Migration
The Purpose
- Identify which documents are to be migrated and build a structure for organizing them in the new environment.
Key Benefits Achieved
- List of documents to be migrated
- Framework for building a content structure in the new SharePoint system
- Support decisions about approach to migration (e.g. third-party service, Microsoft API)
Activities
Outputs
Inventory documents to be migrated.
- Content audit
Develop migration plan.
- Migration plan