9 Items for a SharePoint Management Consultant to Know the Company

As a SharePoint management consultant, the following are nine key aspects to know about the company whom you will be consulting for: 

1. Descriptive information – What does the company do? How many employees do they have? Where are they located?
2. Financial information – What is the company's balance sheet? 
3. Customers – Who are the customers of the company?
4. Values – What are the company's values?
5. Ownership – Who owns the company? 
6. Strategy – How does the company innovate? How do they make decisions? 
7. Communication – How does the company communicate? What information do they communicate publicly?
8. People – Who are the key individuals in leadership roles?
9. Partners – Who are the business partners of the company?

Switching from Google Workspace to SharePoint Online

The following are some good key sites about switching from Google Workspace to SharePoint Online:

Switch to SharePoint Online from Google Sites

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/switch-to-sharepoint-online-from-google-sites-3f77e002-5328-4487-a023-2a0b5093dcb0

Migrate Google Workspace to Microsoft 365 with Migration Manager

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointmigration/mm-google-overview

Migrate from Google Workspace 

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointmigration/mm-google-step1-connect?source=recommendations

Microsoft Co-Pilot AI Sites

The following are some good sites which cover Microsoft Pilot AI aspects:

Unleash your Productivity with AI and Microsoft 365 Copilot:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/unleash-your-productivity-with-ai-and-microsoft-365-copilot-0bff3d8e-96a2-4bd0-9ac4-b128b1291394

Introducing Microsoft 365 Copilot—A Whole New Way To Work:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2023/03/16/introducing-microsoft-365-copilot-a-whole-new-way-to-work/

Frequently Asked Questions about AI and Microsoft 365 Copilot:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/frequently-asked-questions-about-ai-and-microsoft-365-copilot-987b275d-f6f2-4d5d-94c5-e927cffae705

Introducing Microsoft 365 Copilot: Your Copilot for Work:

https://news.microsoft.com/2023/03/16/introducing-microsoft-365-copilot-your-copilot-for-work/

Introducing Microsoft Security Copilot:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/business/ai-machine-learning/microsoft-security-copilot

Microsoft AI:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/ai/

Favorite Sites About SharePoint

The following are several good sites that explain what SharePoint is:

What is SharePoint?

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/what-is-sharepoint-97b915e6-651b-43b2-827d-fb25777f446f

Get Started with SharePoint:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/get-started-with-sharepoint-909ec2f0-05c8-4e92-8ad3-3f8b0b6cf261

SharePoint - Your Mobile - Intelligent Intranet:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/sharepoint/collaboration

Create and Use Modern Pages on a SharePoint Site:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/create-and-use-modern-pages-on-a-sharepoint-site-b3d46deb-27a6-4b1e-87b8-df851e503dec

SharePoint Help & Learning:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint

Before Starting A SharePoint Project

Clarify the following with the relevant stakeholders and team when starting a SharePoint project:

1) Purpose and justification.

2) Measurable objectives.

3) Deliverables.

4) Acceptance criteria.

5) Critical success factors.

6) Constraints and assumptions.

7) Proposed budget and schedule goals.

Real working thought:

It’s important to have a realistic scope in regard to what a SharePoint project will encompass and output. I've been a member of a few projects where the scope was not realistic and on one occasion needed new technology to be built until the proper outcome could be met. This therefore led to potential cost overruns in the budget.

6 Key Aspects That Are Good About SharePoint

The following are six key aspects about SharePoint that are good:

1. End to end - good platform for distributing content and processes

2. Scale and agility - the platform is updated often and therefore provides a faster deployment strategy as part of it's ecosystem

3. Delivering trust - the system provides a core permission model

4. High availability - the system is made to scale and provides to the enterprise this valuable concept

5. Too integrated to fail - the system provides many out of the box features and functionality as well as allows for customizations

6. Hybrid and multi cloud - the system can be set-up half on-premise and half in the cloud therefore allowing for scalable as needed   

7 Steps in the Mind of the SharePoint Customer

The following are seven steps in the mind of the SharePoint customer:

1. One has to know the SharePoint customers

2. One has to inform the SharePoint customers

3. One has to help the SharePoint customers

4. One has to surprise the SharePoint customers

5. One has to delight the SharePoint customers

6. One has to thank the SharePoint customers

7. One has to reward the SharePoint customers