SharePoint implementations lack management plan
A new survey by AIIM (Association for Information and Image Management) finds that implementations of Microsoft SharePoint generally go ahead without a formal business plan, and with confusion about where and how it is to be used.
The online survey of 624 individual members of the AIIM community between May 6th and June 5th, 2010 found that SharePoint deployment is proceeding rapidly, with 22% of respondents reporting it to be in use by 100% of staff. This adoption rate is set to double by this time next year.
That's the good news.
The bad news is that many of these deployments are poorly thought out and implemented. Less than 50% of SharePoint implementations were subject to a formal business case, and only half of those required a financial justification. As a result, most did not have a management plan as to which of SharePoint's many features were to be used, and where.
This is a point Prescient Digital's Toby Ward has made repeatedly (including during a Webinar he conducted on Sharepoint for communicators). I've seen it again and again in organizations. Sharepoint is chosen as the platform for the intranet and is rolled out as an IT project with no regard for governance or management, turning it into a nightmare rather than a solution.
Sharepoint can be terrific for individual teams, but when it's adopted as the foundation for the entire intranet, considerable management effort is required. Deployment needs to be viewed as a knowledge-and-information initiative and managed that way.
Read the full article for even more points that support the need for a plan when you roll out SharePoint as a total intranet solution.
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