By Kendall Lougheed, President, MicroWorks

I just attended a SharePoint users group meeting the other day and I walked away with the feeling that I had stepped through a time warp from 25 years ago.  The room was filled with all kinds of people but the presentation was for developers about how to get this done or that done.  And then I thought about all the SharePoint projects that get over-engineered, then stumble or even fail.   So how is it that one company (ours, I say immodestly) can bat 1000 for successfully adopted collaboration and document management systems in a relatively short time while others seem to take forever and even end up being abandoned.  I have an opinion that I would like to share.

Fundamental Mistake Number 1 – “Build it and they will come.”
Let’s do an intranet, put up some information and people will get drawn to it over time.  Sigh.  Busy people do not have time to poke around a web site and see if anything useful will show up eventually.  That intranet better be purposeful right away or you lose your chance just like that.  Do not let your developers or your IT staff guess at what your organization needs.  No matter how smart they are (and they are usually very smart), they are not the voice of your business needs.    Nope, this approach is dead in the water.

Fundamental Mistake Number 2 -  “Let’s make a list of our requirements.”
In its best form, this involves business analysts, consultations, senior level involvement. Sounds great but all too many companies end up with a list of requirements, compare them to SharePoint’s capabilities then abandon or build.  Both can be a big mistake.  The requirements list ends up like a shopping list written when you’re hungry – lots of everything whether you need it or not.  I believe in business analysis but not the shopping list kind. 

Fundamental Mistake Number 3 – “Let’s get an IM expert to figure it out.”
Yes, maybe.  But do you really want to go to an extensive document management system with full workflow controls everywhere, and with compelling all your users to type in metadata until they are blue in the face?  Look how many excellent RDMS solutions there are out there and users hate them.  Notice how they have tended to move their documents from the corporate RDMS and back to the email system or their C Drive? 

Keys to Success
If you want a successful, relevant document and collaboration solution be sure to do the following.  Begin with a good visioning exercise that involves all levels of the organization.   We have huge (100%) success with our process because it builds vision, momentum and consensus very quickly.  Next do your business analysis but ensure it has an effective facilitation component so that minor needs do not falsely become major needs.  Include a priority setting exercise to identify the most impactful solutions for quick wins and initial deployment.  Focus on adoption – users are not willing to take very long to apply metadata or to fight with a taxonomy they do not understand or care about.   Most important, focus on simplicity.  I will go on record to say that over 90% of what users want when it comes to identifying, collecting, managing, and reusing content is captured right out of the box in SharePoint.