Author: Lee Reed

People will only visit SharePoint and use it as a primary information source when the pain of accessing the information any other way is greater than accessing it through SharePoint.  Giving people a reason to visit, then, may be as simple as providing up-to-date information, access to common forms, automated information routing and providing access to information that simply cannot be found elsewhere.

Keep Information Current, Remove Old Content with a Vengeance

Deleting aged information is one of the most difficult things for information workers to do.  We generally have the mentality that we should keep everything we create simply because we might need it ‘someday’.  This is a fine strategy for us to adopt when we store our files on a network share but it’s not acceptable when we view ‘old’ information within our intranet.  When we see out of date information on our intranet or internet site we begin to discount all of the information on the web site.  Why is there this difference between what’s available on the network share and what’s available on the Intranet?  I bet it has something to do with the fact that we’ve grown accustom to old information being stored on our network drives.  If we associate ‘old’ with ‘network’ then we’re not surprised when we encounter old info on the network.  The other side of this coin is that we associate browser-based web sites with ‘new’.  Therefore, when we see ‘old’ information on a platform that we expect to contain ‘new’ information, we are surprised.  This makes it all the more important to remove aged content from SharePoint, such as old documents, aging budget information and previously important contact names and numbers.  Information that is removed from SharePoint can be placed in an archive location that allows users access it while not representing itself as ‘current’.  Keep all the information that is presented on your SharePoint sites as current as possible and remove old content with a vengeance.  This will give people a reason to visit….to see the latest information that’s available on a particular topic.

Create SharePoint-Only Information

When you are attempting to modify the behavior of your user community and have them adopt SharePoint, one way to get them to use the tool is to create SharePoint-only information.  This will be information that will only be found on SharePoint and will not be emailed, printed, distributed or communicated in any other fashion outside of SharePoint.  Good examples of this are messages from the CEO about corporate performance, strategic focus for the fiscal year, a departmental budget submission process and sales figures.  Any type of information that forces the user to go to SharePoint will contribute to increased adoption of your SharePoint solution.  Consider providing content that probably hasn’t ever been created and socialized within your organization previously, such as a Podcast with your corporate Vice President, a video showing an overview of the new corporate headquarters or a webcam that shows who is sitting in your lobby.  Providing content only on your SharePoint sites make your SharePoint sites attractive to your users and they will repay you with increased use.

Shift the Mindset to “SharePoint will support Our Existing Collaboration”

People are often led to believe, through even the most well intentioned IT Department, that SharePoint is introducing collaboration into your organization.  This mindset communicates that somehow the socialization and sharing of information magically begins shortly after SharePoint is installed and training on how to use it concludes.  Truth is, collaboration is already occurring every day within your company.  Each meeting, project status report, document review and hallway conversation defines the collaborative nature of your organization.  Your mindset, therefore, should shift from “I will implement SharePoint to enable collaboration within my company” to “I will be implementing SharePoint in support of the collaboration that’s already occurring in my company”.  As you work to implement SharePoint, seek out every opportunity to apply its capabilities to increase the efficiency of the collaboration that is already occurring rather than search for new places to apply this technology.  This works to make the areas where SharePoint can positively affect your business be presented to you, rather than you spending time seeking them out.

Technology isn’t the Success, Communication is the Success

Keep in mind that a successful implementation of SharePoint doesn’t mean that the technology is implemented successfully.  A successful SharePoint implementation is one in which communication amongst diverse areas of the business or geographic locations increases.  It means that a department or project is now creating documents communally rather than individually.  It means that people are beginning to see the benefits of sharing information and are contributing their knowledge for the common good of the company.  With SharePoint it’s very easy to focus in on all the nuances of the technology and its implementation.  What web part should you use?  Do you need to purchase a third party web part to accommodate a particular need?  How much storage do we need to plan for so we don’t run into problems down the road?  These are important issues, but they aren’t the most important things to focus on in your user adoption efforts.  SharePoint’s greatest uplift for your organization comes from the demolition of the silos of information that have existed in your organization for some time and allow the information to be freely available for people to make real business decisions.

Author: Lee Reed

Lee is a SharePoint Consultant in Atlanta, GA and has held technology leadership positions in the healthcare, commercial real estate, multifamily, consulting and legal industries. He is laser focused on assisting companies to leverage their technology investments with a driving passion around demystifying technology to drive collaboration success.