SharePoint^® Governance:
Best Practices for Managing SharePoint^® Environments

Applying Governance to SharePoint

Defining the value of SharePoint governance

• Identifying key factors of failed SharePoint implementations
• Classifying varying degrees of SharePoint governance
• Establishing essential foundations of SharePoint governance
• Prioritising the components of a governance plan
• Developing the plan in stages

Examining case studies

• Correlating corporate size to fit the governance plan
• Analysing the governance plan to assess potential risk
• Identifying compliance requirements

Developing true executive sponsorship

• Avoiding sponsorship pitfalls
• Developing a ROI model
• Justifying SharePoint implementations
• Maintaining committed sponsorship

SharePoint governance planning

• Mapping business needs to SharePoint
• Analysing a SharePoint governance model

Establishing Governance Hierarchies

Employing relevant information architecture

• Determining information requirements
• Assessing site hierarchies to satisfy business objectives
• Structuring usage and content taxonomies
• Utilising mind maps to organise site taxonomies

Establishing user management policies

• Identifying user taxonomies
• Creating a communications plan
• Mapping user information needs to relevant permissions

Addressing scalability

• Evaluating the impact of scalability on your plan
• Ensuring your plan complements the organisational footprint

Determining Roles and Responsibilities

Establishing a SharePoint governance team

• Defining the roles within the team
• Developing a team life cycle
• Differentiating strategic vs. tactical team objectives

Establishing individual roles

• Highlighting IT, SharePoint and business roles
• Determining appropriate skillsets for your team
• Performing a skillset gap analysis

SharePoint Operations and Usage Policies

Reviewing initial operational requirements

• Gathering business requirements for SharePoint
• Evaluating proper operating procedures documentation

Customising SharePoint usability

• Enhancing navigation
• Optimising Search
• Integrating various content sources

Setting SharePoint policies

• Establishing site provisioning standards
• Addressing the need for change management to ensure plan continuity

Integrating multitiered support

• Identifying the need for a multilevel support network
• Assessing lines of communication and functions
• Incorporating SharePoint into your IT support infrastructure

SharePoint release best practices

• Deploying a SharePoint pilot
• Establishing release management guidelines and processes
• Developing SharePoint deployment procedures

Ensuring User Adoption with Communication and Training

Communicating for success

• Selling the benefits of a governance plan
• Building a stakeholder-focused communication plan

Stakeholder communications

• Selecting your communication medium
• Leveraging SharePoint collaboration tools for message delivery

Training the organisation

• Identifying different training requirements
• Selecting from various training methods
• Developing a comprehensive training plan

Validating SharePoint Governance Strategies

Applying a change control mechanism

• Employing a change management process
• Assessing the need to build a change request site to facilitate the approval process

Scheduling governance reviews

• Assigning plan ownership to the governance
• Reviewing the governance plan maintenance
• Incorporating lessons learned