Dux Sy from Innovative-e kicked off day 2 of Share2010 with his keynote on SharePoint success and collaboration. Find Dux pretty much everywhere online, or start at meetdux.com. Dux started off with his famous “SharePoint is nice nice baby” rap.

Key points:

• What are some of the critical pieces to deliver SharePoint success with collaboration. Collaboration is much much more than technology. Key parts – executive buy-in, planning, managing expectations, engaging / user adoption, SharePoint readiness, interative release of SharePoint solutions.
• Have to start by defining what SharePoint is to your organization. What does SharePoint mean? Dux sees a continuum with SharePoint implementation – from draconian IT, through empowerment, through wild west chaos.
• Robert McDowell, In Search of Business Value, “Technology provides no benefits of its own; it is the application of technology to business opportunities that produces ROI.“
• Key point #1, raising executive awareness of SharePoint is necessary. It isn’t about explaining the features – you need to talk about value within what they understand. See Dux’s article, 5 Reasons Why Executive SharePoint Ignorance is Not Bliss. Example – introduction of Meeting Workspaces for meetings. Tip – look for existing business pain points, measure it, and prove how SharePoint can be a lifesaver.
• Key point #2, collaboratively engineer a solution. Hold a workshop with appropriate decision makers. Educate decision makers early on how SharePoint can support their business needs – and then address pain points. Don’t call the system “SharePoint” – call it what the purpose is (“intranet”) or an application (“onboarding”).
• Key point #3, assess organizational readiness. Eg., “size and effort,” “business impact/value,” “reusability,” and others. Also do the other side of IT readiness, “implementation impact,” “support impact,” “training impact,” and more. Take priorities back to executives, and seek direction on next steps. You can’t do it all. See Dux’s article, How to Prioritize Business Needs When Implementing SharePoint. A final part is change management – culture, governance, adoption, and feedback. Develop a roadmap for SharePoint.
• Key point #4, iterative release of SharePoint solutions. See the Easyjet video on the approach they took with rolling SharePoint out.

Questions
1. What about finding people in the organization who have already used SharePoint well? That approach works really well too.

2. What are your thoughts on success with what you are doing with SharePoint? There are lots of discussions around measurement. Measure success by what value / benefit you deliver to “Lisa at Finance” and making her life better.

3. What did the CIO think when you showed HR people what they could do? He was with me – because I had briefed him in advance.

4. If you are going to implement SharePoint, it will impact on resources. Equally, if you streamline processes, what is the motivation for people to eliminate their job by using SharePoint? It’s not about eliminating jobs – we didn’t stick to fax machines. Usually, people have too much to do now already. That time can be put on more higher order work (thinking, planning).