SharePoint Governance: Deployment Plan

This is the final post of our SharePoint Governance series and we hope you have already learned a lot. For this blog, we will be reviewing steps you need to take for your deployment plan. First of all, your deployment plan needs to capture both the hearts and minds of the user community in order to ensure that your solution will be successful. Everyone within your organization needs to be on the same page for your SharePoint site to work for you.

The following areas should be incorporated in your rollout and launch plan.

• Communication- Get the word out by using corporate newsletters, in-person meetings, and hallway bulletin boards to communicate the new SharePoint offering to the user community. Really highlight the benefits that it can bring each department and how connecting departments will make their jobs easier.
• Company handbook- Provide clear instruction on how and when users should work with SharePoint, including what constitutes abuse or misuse of the system, how to keep information secure, when to use SharePoint versus other alternatives, and how to request new functionality.
• Training- Your solution is only as good as the people who are using it. Ensure that users and administrators know how to use SharePoint effectively. The most important type of training is site collection administrator training, followed by end-user training.
• Incentives and rewards- Make sure that users understand what’s in it for them. It may be a good idea to get users contributing to SharePoint content, and reward them with gifts, recognition, etc. Once your employees break through that first time use, they will want to use it more often.

If you have any questions on any of the SharePoint Governance blogs we’ve shared with you over the past couple of weeks, please contact us for more information. As Microsoft SharePoint experts, our team members at CoreBix are equipped with unique fields of expertise, allowing us to construct your SharePoint site at an average cost rate, while maintaining the quality expected of custom SharePoint developers.

By Robert Jumblatt of CoreBix, Washington, DC Microsoft SharePoint Solutions Experts