Like
the content of your website or intranet, planning and governance is
technology agnostic; whether its SharePoint or another portal or
content management platform, the necessity for and the approach to
governance is the same. Given its technology neutral status in the
realm of website and intranet evolution this module on planning and
governance is largely applicable to any technology platform and as
such is generic to start.
While
generic in nature, there are some components of SharePoint that
require specific consideration, and are discussed and addressed by
the interviewed subject matter experts and the included case studies
(see Planning
for SharePoint Success).
“Without
proper architecture and governance, I can guarantee you that
SharePoint will fail,” says Bob Mixon, President of Mixon
Consulting,
addressing the annual Enterprise 3 conference in San Diego.
In
particular, the powerful Team Site features and easy deployment
features (Site Collections) of SharePoint make it even more demanding
of a rigorous plan and detailed governance model. While
intranet governance provides clarity and rules: namely the titles,
roles and responsibilities of its owners, managers, stakeholders and
contributors.
Sadly,
very few organizations actually have a well-defined governance model,
and many of those have spent hundreds-of-thousands to millions of
dollars on their website or intranet – amounting to extraordinary
investments left to chance and execution on a whim.
According
to the Intranet
2.0 Global Survey:
-
only
47% of organizations have a defined governance model (32% have 6,000
employees or more; 11% have 30,000 employees or more); -
of
the tools and platforms being used by survey participants, a
whopping 47% are using SharePoint (MOSS 2007) in some shape or form.
Intranet
Sprawl
As IP
technology has advanced corporate intranets have become more complex
and interactive including human resource and purchasing applications,
collaboration tools, business intelligence and real-time reporting
tools. Some organizations without intranet governance and enterprise
standards (for web page and content creation) have seen the birth of
individual intranets for every department and work team.
“Do-what-you-like” was the only rule and the corporate network
became the wild west or ‘intranet sprawl’.
'Intranet
sprawl' can be a poisonous side-effect of SharePoint Team Site and
site collection use without the proper “rules” for deploying and
managing sites. However, its not merely a SharePoint problem. At one
point at the turn of the millennium, IBM's network was choked with
approximately 10,000 intranet sites before they undertook a
governance process and federation (consolidation campaign) that saved
the company untold millions (IBM claims its saved more than a $1
billion).
Perhaps
more so than most, SharePoint (MOSS 2007 or WSS) requires a
governance model. I categorize intranet governance by four broad
approaches or models:
-
Decentralized
(no single owner; do-what-you-like) -
Centralized
a single owner or department controls it all; highly bureaucratic;
common in small organizations) -
Collaborative
(shared ownership via committee) -
Hybrid,
centralized
(single owner, with collaborative accountability, decentralized
content ownership)
Learn
more about planning and governance for the corporate intranet, with a
specific focus on MOSS 2007, during our free webinar Planning
for SharePoint Success (April 13).