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 #3 …

Donny: SharePoint Training and Transformation

Donny asked: “What methods have you seen work at organizations to help individuals embrace sharepoint and transform the way they work? Merely doing classes across our organization does not seem to be the most effective? Do you know of any other methods to engage people and walk them through tranformational ways of using sharepoint and increasing team and personal productivity.”

My response:
– Donny, this question is at the heart of my current thinking and research. It’s one of the more trickly questions to ask (and answer).
– I fully expect that training classes will fail, because most emphasis features of the tool, not process-embedded examples and scenarios
– Three things have to be done: (1) craft and present a series of scenarios that show coherence within SharePoint that can help improve business practice, (2) engage with early adopters within your firm on these scenarios, seeing who they resonate with, and transforming the scenarios into something they could adopt, and then (3) work with an intact group to facilitate the agreement to try a new way of working, as a group.
– The above three steps gives you the upfront performance idea. Once a group has give ascent to doing it, then you need to develop ways of keeping them accountable. Peer pressure (“Don’t send me email; put that into SharePoint”) and no-other-alternative (“Meeting notes are in SharePoint now; I’m not sending them to you.”) are helpful strategies.
– My PhD research is investigating this area, and in a few years, I hope to make some of this more easy as a result. But it’s not ready yet.

What else should be said in answering this question?