- 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.