In February, I was the guest speaker at a Colligo Networks webinar on 7 Ways to Get More from your SharePoint Deployment Now! There were a number of questions that were asked during the discussion that we didn’t get to on the day, so we said we would answer by blog (and email). So … question #1 …

Michael: Standardizing Metadata, Content Types and Templates

Michael asked: “We have multiple business units that have different processes and can’t seem to come to an agreement on standard metadata, content types, templates, etc. How do you create a standarization for SharePoint and where in the business should this standarization come from?”

My answer:
– It’s okay to do it at the business unit level
– Ultimately, you want SharePoint to support the business processes, and if there is wide variation, then SharePoint has to support that
– If there is wide variation, then do different site collections and set metadata, content types and templates as appropriate
– I suggest that you should look at Chapter 12 of my book, Seamless Teamwork … it talks about this more.

What else should be said in answering this question?