3 Tips for Effective SharePoint Online Governance

The following are three tips for effective SharePoint Online governance:

• Regularly review and update the governance policies as the organization's needs change.
• Communicate the governance policies to all users and provide training on how to comply with them.
• Audit the SharePoint Online environment regularly to identify and address any potential compliance issues.

3 SharePoint Online Governance Tips and Tricks

The following are three SharePoint Online governance tips and tricks:

1. Establish clear governance policies and procedures:

A strong foundation for effective SharePoint Online governance is needed to establish clear and comprehensive policies and procedures that outline the guidelines for content creation, management, and access. conventions, metadata usage, and versioning policies to maintain consistency and facilitate efficient content management.

2. Utilize governance tools and solutions:

Leveraging governance tools and solutions can help streamline and enhance governance processes. These tools can automate various tasks, enforce policies, and provide insights into the SharePoint environment.

3. Monitor and enforce governance policies:

Regularly monitor the SharePoint environment to ensure compliance with governance policies and identify any potential issues or deviations. Utilize reporting tools to track site creation, content usage, and permissions based changes.

5 Questions to Ask to Self-assess SharePoint Governance Practices

The following are five questions to ask to self-assess SharePoint governance practices: 

1. Is the SharePoint steering committee up to date on the latest developments in information technology from a business perspective?

2. Is the SharePoint steering committee aware of any conflicts between the business units and the information technology units?

3. Does the SharePoint steering committee receive status reports on major information technology projects?

4. Is the SharePoint steering committee briefed often on information technology risks to which the enterprise is exposed?

5. Is the SharePoint steering committee obtaining independent consulting advice on the information technology objectives it is wishing to partake in – and being told of the known risks?

SharePoint Web Content Management

The following are some key steps to utilize in regard to web content management:

Step 1 – Create content with proper page layouts and image resources.

Step 2 – Have content approved/rejected via an approval process.

Step 3 – Schedule content as needed.

Step 4 – Have a start date and end date for published content. Once content is expired, it should be archived.

View Video:

Communication of SharePoint Governance Plans

Communication of SharePoint governance standards and polices could follow a communications path as such:

Content

• Have a published governance policy and standards section available for all SharePoint users
• Governance Announcements: make sure they are always up to date as changes in regard to policies and initiatives are updated

Format

• Utilize a sectioned wiki of core and key information so that content can be easily referenced and linked to
• Utilize a blog with proper categories relevant to the areas of the governance that are to be posted

Timing

• Update content at least once a month to keep it fresh

Who

• The Farm SharePoint Administrators should be responsible for producing and updating the governance information and for communication
• Communication can be via formal e-mail communication, an announcement on the SharePoint site itself or via alerts that are set-up in SharePoint (by users or administrators)

SharePoint Top 4 Core Governance Risks

The following are 4 top risks to an effective SharePoint governance plan:

·         Obtaining proper support from the business leaders to enforce the proper governance

·         Site collection administrators and power users refusing to abide by the posted policies

·         Needed support and resources, especially budget is non-existent

·         By not following governance the old ways of management of content stray from usefulness and business value

View Video:

Mutual Information Details for SharePoint

The following are mutual information details that vice-presidents and directors are interested in:

• Customer feedback - issue status & troubleshooting
• Active incidents - ongoing issues -  trends
• Upcoming activities - events requiring resources, space modifications or office moves, etc.
•  Respective office organization changes
• Feedback via communications:
• o    service desk notifications
• o    project notifications and updates
• o    additional or modified communication requests  

View Video:

Communication Details for SharePoint

The following are some points which vice-presidents and directors are interested in:

• Regular updates
• Issue trends – office-specific and firm-wide
• Budget alerts – related costs that will be charged
• Firm-wide projects having impact to daily operations
• One-off efforts, where applicable, having an impact to daily operations

View Video:

9:00A.M. Meeting Agenda for SharePoint

Purpose: The purpose of the 9a.m. update meeting is to share functional updates that will increase the overall effectiveness of the department.

Action Items: Be prepared to discuss the following items at 9:00am meetings.

a. Items that occurred in the last 24 hours that have impact.

b. A 2-3 minute daily update from a project management perspective from each invited individual.

c. What are the trends in the last 24-hours?

d. What issues are still outstanding?

e. What is happening in the next 24-48 hours?

View Video:

Managing SharePoint Top 12 Items

The following are some key traits to utilize when managing SharePoint:
1) Building a Team
2) Utilize a Project Methodology
3) Budgeting
4) Technical Architecture
5) Governance
6) Training
7) Change Control
8) Technical Roadmap – Yearly
9) Intake for Requests
10) On-going On-Boarding
11) On-going Changes
12) Handling Overall Growth

View Video:

SharePoint & Teaching

When teaching others about SharePoint – the following items one should be mindful of:

·         Observe how you react to mistakes – and not be defensive – SharePoint is challenging to learn so users should be taught with patience

·         Try new learning techniques – users learn differently so be mindful of this – therefore creating many different mediums (live classes, remote classes, videos, quick guides, self-help written modules, etc.) is essential

·         Teach in your area of strength – if one is good with out of the box SharePoint aspects – they should teach in that area, if one is good with workflows, they should teach in that area  

View Video:

SharePoint and Change – Part I

The following are some key items to consider when using SharePoint as a platform for change:

 

1)      Let proper team members know of change so that a plan for how to communicate change to organization can be created

2)      Define how SharePoint will be utilized in the organization. Will its main purpose be document management, content sites or utilization of key and core workflows

3)      Account for governance – know what users will be allowed and not allow to do. Make the governance plans readily available in a wiki or series of blog posts.

4)      Account for at least a one hour to 90 minute overview of SharePoint functionality that users will need to know (upload documents, use lists, how to search, how to use managed metadata, etc.)

5)      Develop and fine tune – processes for how best to manage work and requests in SharePoint by utilizing request forms for requirements so that an Agile model can be followed by creating from such requests the needed stories and tasks for what was being asked.

View Video:

SharePoint & Waterfall

When it comes to what project methodology to utilize in regard to SharePoint, waterfall is indeed one method.

To use Waterfall with SharePoint the following steps are followed:

Gather system requirements – which for SharePoint this usually involves what is needed for a site/subsite, workflow or piece of functionality (custom web-part, list, calendar, etc.).

Software requirements – for SharePoint sake this could involve what features to turn on/off as well as what functionality to build.

Analysis – look into SharePoint from a 360 degree overview in order to meet requirements via how users work today. This involves knowing what works and doesn’t work for users after talking to them.

Program Design – in SharePoint speak this would involve the applicable page layout and needed imagery.

Coding – a developer, administrator or analyst – would then build the SharePoint functionality.

Testing – users would utilize a created test script to test and signoff on what was built.

Operation – functionality is put into production and when changes are needed – the process steps are repeated as needed.

View Video:

SharePoint & Agile Scrum

Overall – SharePoint and agile scrum are a good fit for many reasons – the common aspects of Epic -> Feature -> Story and Task are given an overview below of how they fit together in a SharePoint project.

Epics - SharePoint agile scrum allows teams to formulate epics (which would encompass a major release) – overall, epics maybe good for a new installation, upgrade, or cumulative patch of SharePoint.

Features – in SharePoint agile scrum, a feature (working functionality usually part of an epic) may consist of creating a custom web part or creating a new workflow for a change control process (these can be the features that are part of your new install).

Stories – these are the aspects that need created/built which will allow users to accomplish what they need to do in the said system. Stories are usually written in the context of:

As a <   >, I need  <   >, so that I get <  >. Where the text between the < > would be filled in by the users or an analyst working with a user.

A SharePoint example of a story would be:

As an end user, I need a button which when checked populates a list so that I get changes from the change control system from the day before.

Tasks – as part of a story – tasks will be needed so that the aspects that make up the stories asked are created and built.

SharePoint example:

                Custom list is created with proper fields

External content type is created for change control status field

Form is designed with button lookup to change control system

Thus – core agile scrum methods can indeed work well for SharePoint and tweaked and defined based on one’s business needs.

 

View Video:

How to Measure Success in SharePoint

The following are some items to consider to measure that SharePoint is successful:

•       End-users understand the capabilities of the platform and are well trained to use them

•       New sites and applications are systematically introduced with quick time-to-market leveraging site templates, compliant with standards which follow approved corporate branding

•       Governance teams review and proactively act based on the usage data and business needs

•       Business users are aware of the security model and help to enforce

•       Service-level agreements (SLAs) are in place, platform performance is good, and any custom coding and enhancements are well tested

•       The growth of the server farms, servers, and storage is planned out to be scalable as the business needs

•       Operational costs are in line with business value delivered by the platform

View Video:

Building and Evolving SharePoint Governance

The following are some points to take on while building the phases of a SharePoint Governance plan:

•       Initial work stream should focus on:

- Addressing major areas of operations, support and development activity

- Mitigate key immediate risks

- Establish the right organizational structure and ownership is key (people aspect)

- Develop foundation of governance polices, standards and a compliance process

•       Leverage existing processes and teams

•       Bring in new teams only to help with gaps in the organization

•       Realize that the governance document or wiki is a living document and will change with the business

View Video:

SharePoint Governance Phases

The following are three key phases to utilize when putting together a SharePoint governance planned approach:

•       Phase 1 – Plan and Initiate

•       Establish appropriate teams and oversight

•       Develop actionable SharePoint strategy aligned with business needs

•       Define initial set of policies & standards with focus on short term pain points

•       Start education and training

•       Implement compliance enforcement processes

•       Phase 2 – Operationalize

•       Integrate policies and standards into day-to-day activities and existing processes

•       Finalize policies and standards

•       Continue oversight, education and training

•       Automate compliance where possible

•       Phase 3 – Mature as needed

•       Review progress and results

•       Mature policies, standards and processes

 

View Video:

Key Contents of a SharePoint Governance Plan

The following are some items to make sure a SharePoint governance plan accounts for:

·         Vision

·         Key Roles and Responsibilities

·         Information Governance Policies

·         Operations and Support Governance Policies

·         Development Governance Policies

·         Security Policies

·         Training Plan

View Video:

Gaps and opportunities in SharePoint

The following are some key and core gaps and opportunities that are common within many SharePoint environment:

•       Lack of business focus

•       Lack of formalized support structure for SharePoint

•       Lack of scalability of the architecture

•       Lack of evaluating business risks around content stored in SharePoint

•       Lack of an information management records and taxonomy management policy

•       Lack of appropriate service level agreement for SharePoint

•       Lack of high availability and a disaster recovery strategy

•       Lack of a monitoring strategy

View Video:

What to Govern in SharePoint

The following are key items to govern in SharePoint:

Content which can have many pieces to it – some of which may include:

Customization policy

Lifecycle management (active and unused sites)

Branding and templates

Data protection

Quota templates (how much data can be stored in a site collection)

Self-service provisioning

Asset classification (for example, high, moderate, or low business value)

Development which can be broken down into:

Application architecture

Design standards and best practices

Platform aspects which may include:

Technical architecture

Operations

Support

Capacity and Performance

View Video: