Part 2 of 5: The Build & Launch

Having worked in e learning for years I understood perfectly the dilemma that many users feel once mass amounts of content are uploaded to Learning or Content Management Systems, overwhelmed. While those systems do ask for tagging and categorizing they can often fumble when automatic or intuitive curriculum builds are launched.

This is very much the case for our internal LMS. As I mentioned earlier in Part 1 staff need to log in a number of times and perform key word searches and then filter through the results. The system works fine to deliver and track corporate wide compliance training, but it certainly lacks that finer customization that knowledge workers need.

From the onset I began to categorize my content and group them according to some of the key words that would trigger further navigation into subject areas. The main categories were as follows:

• New Hire info
• Procedures
• Newsletters
• Training Materials
• Systems
• Domestic
• Generic
• Global
• Market Training
• Product
• Soft Skills

Knowledge Management

The ability drive content type creation (and not have it be dictated) opened a door for efficiency. How many times have you been forced to make a choice when your circumstance was a matter of being gray given your choices? Case in point, had I used the LMS a flash based tutorial that is more an electronic

In the LMS I would have had to tag it as some kind of organized learning object. Yes, one does learn from this resource, but is it a full out training class that needs to be tracked? Again as I mentioned in Part 1 our goal was to increase site usage not track how many times Billy Banker referred to it. I did not want users logging in to the LMS in order to discover what command he needed to type into the system to cancel a Hong Kong trade on the system.

The financial services industry is a conservative one. Exposing everyone to a rich content type based knowledge management/workflow system would indeed be too much. I realized that in order for my group to successfully use SharePoint I would have to take baby steps or have to roll out rigorous training sessions to explain the finer aspects of all the MOSS new pull down menus and commands, versioning and workflows. That endeavor seemed too high a mountain to climb so instead I opted for phasing the site to the functionality I wanted.

Phase 1

While I had mastered the easy set up of new pages and libraries, the real key was being able to customize the left navigation panel. In accordance with all good site planning, I had spreadsheet (since converted to this site’s template) to act as the basis of pages and content areas.

Once I had all my files uploaded in their proper library and all the links in place I pre-launched to a few managers to get feedback. I could tell they like the idea of SharePoint. They saw the benefits of the site and its functions, but there was a something missing. It just looks like another shared folder in the end, they told me.

That something revealed itself when I demoed my first versions of the flash based tutorials. Captivate can export a bundle of files of which there are htmls that hold the flash files. I thought it easy enough to just link htmls to the nav bar. The nav bar soon grew beyond best common practices so I created a simple page and began to link all the htmls there. When the managers saw this they immediately liked it.

Although the creation and linking of numerous basic web pages becomes a tedious task not to mention it deprives the user of SharePoint’s strengths (the build in navigation and posting of the out of the box solutions such as lists and libraries), it did provide users with the familiarity of a web page with links. In their hectic worlds the users found a bit of calmness on these simple pages or that’s what I told myself.

It was here that basic SharePoint add-on’s came into play. PowerPoint emailed newsletters became a blog, a photo gallery and library web parts begin to appear. SharePoint allowed me the solution upon the arrival of the request for more.

Phase 2: Even a locked down wiki can work

A short time after the launch I quickly realized that more could be added despite the use of basic page table of contents. The desire to launch the site coincided with the first down turns in the financial markets in 2008.

My hopes were soon answered as the initial user reports showed users as far away as Asia and Europe accessing the site. The overwhelming positive vibe on the site was a driving agent to move it towards its potential.

My problem was that I really did not feel like redesigning the initial training site. It would simply take too much time to redesign and deploy. I did not want to lose any of the positive review momentum that had been gained. Luckily the site acted as a fulcrum to bring more content my way and I soon found myself with enough procedure based information and commonly used terms that another child site could be created.

Covering a global financial desk differs from a US domestic one. The systems that a rep uses almost doubles, there are many factors to follow such as time zone changes, trade cut offs, currency exchanges, etc.

A Global FAQ doc had been floating around since I arrived but many of the entries were either in outdated or just plain incorrect. As a stand alone file this word document contained many entries broken down by content categories with multiple entries under its perspective heading. Within the entry itself there could be imbedded files, forms, pdfs used either as reference or template accompanying the content.

Having just done a mammoth amount of basic web page building and having essentially the same thing in front of me I began to plan the site in the same frame of mind as the training site. It would soon verge to a different path.

My first thoughts were to blog the site, but the built in navigation wouldn’t work as a functioning information repository site. I then began to look at the other templates within SharePoint. The wiki proved to be the perfect companion to this content. By adding web part libraries I could in effect recreate and update the document with out drastically changing the same concept as the original word doc.

This time I felt better as SharePoint was able to display its functionality and provide a familiar portal to users.