"Governance is key to success in collaboration technology"

COLUMBUS, USA: CIOs and IT professionals know that collaboration technology is of great value, but only when it's used correctly. Lack of controls leads to sprawl and low adoption. The end result? Businesses are unable to achieve value from what can be a significant investment in this technology.

What makes for a great SharePoint installation and experience is proper planning, thorough business requirements, processes and procedures followed by all users. In fact, when it comes to any business endeavor, governance is what gives structure to the effort and contributes greatly to its success or failure, says business and IT solutions company ICC.

"Governance can be one of those words that make people cringe. It has an air of foreboding and limitation associated with it that, frankly, just doesn't sound like fun," says Michael McNett, national business strategist at ICC.

"Without it, however, there is chaos. That is why we self-organize into groups and societies that are governed by rules and guidelines that most of us agree are necessary, functional and lead to the best outcome for the majority. The same philosophy applies to collaboration technologies like SharePoint."

McNett says users may struggle with understanding boundaries, like who can create a new SharePoint instance or what documents may be housed on the server. This can lead to limited or chaotic adoption.

"Many organizations take the traditional IT approach, believing that they can simply put SharePoint into place and just let users figure things out," says McNett. "This works because the technology is just so intuitive. But this perceived simplicity is exactly why governance must be addressed."

That is why ICC employs dynamic governance and user adoption planning as part of its Seven Point SharePoint Adoption Roadmap. McNett says that governance is not a set-it-and-forget-it set of rules and guidelines. Good governance takes into account changing business realities and adapts. For example, elevating the priority of a business goal may mean that certain SharePoint governance practices should change as well.

"It's extremely important to link the organization's governance plan back to the business goals and priorities," says McNett. "Senior executives need to be involved, communicating changing business goals, priorities, and major initiatives. This involvement ensures the governance plan is driven by the business rather than technology."