Veronique Palmer from Lets Collaborate is talking about user adoption for SharePoint. Key points:

– adoption is a big topic. Veronique will be giving a high level view.
– SharePoint 2007 was usually implemented by IT, with no effort on adoption. So nothing happened.
– When migrating from SharePoint 2007 to 2010 – executives aren’t keen on spending more, because SharePoint 2007 was a failure.
– So … you need to put some different things in place.
– What will make SharePoint fail:
– … Politics – who owns it, who can do what.
– … Poor understanding of ownership
– … Vision (a lack of)
– … Insufficient experience and skills
– What you need – is a user adoption strategy.
– 6 questions:
– … 1. Why are you doing SharePoint? (positioning)
– … 2. When are you doing SharePoint user adoption – before or after.
– … 3. What is your strategy for user adoption? Eg., do we want to become “more social?”
– … 4. Where are you going to role out your adoption strategy? The key is “everywhere.”
– … 5. Who is going to be involved? Business and IT definitely. Will need executive support.
– … 6. How long is it going to take? It will take 2-3 years to make this work.

– strategies:
– … You need a SharePoint hero – to evangelise what you are doing. Should be a business person, not a “geek speak” IT person. Should be a full-time position.
– … Publish what you are doing for your adoption plan. Publish it to SharePoint so people can learn what’s happening.
– … Communicate … you can’t hide what’s happening. You need to speak up.
– … Training is very important. Users will not magically know how to use SharePoint. You need to budget for this.
– … Governance – you need to be doing some. But don’t put in too many rules to discourage people from using it. Or you’ll turn users into criminals.
– … (Remember – there are lots of other tools still available. If you make it too restrictive, people will use other things.)
– … Perhaps talk about “value from investment,” not “return on investment.”

Questions
1. In terms of what we do at OBS, we hunt out the cynic (the person who is anti-SharePoint). Do you suggest doing this?
(Answer) If you have the right person to work with them, it will work. But you need the right person.

2. One approach – don’t show the user what they get until it’s available. Another approach – show the technology right up front. What’s the right approach?
(Answer) Definitely a fan of “from day 1.” You can’t wait until the availability date … you have to show them what’s available from the beginning, and engage with them properly. Start from the basics – and then grow.

3. How do you help a customer identify who should be the evangelist in the company?
(Answer) Veronique does a lot of training – and Veronique can identify the evangelists for the customer.

4. Do you have a view on face-to-face training versus online training?
(Answer) Veronique learns much more from face-to-face training, than online training. It takes a very special person to make online training work. You require a lot more maturity from the staff.

5. What are your thoughts on user-generated training?
(Answer) Would be happy for it, but would keep an eye on it. Would need to make sure the people creating the training knew what was going on. There are some benefits – but you need to govern it.

6. What’s your perspective on branding SharePoint to overcome “don’t make it look like SharePoint?”
(Answer) If people hate SharePoint, branding it differently won’t solve the problem. And there are some big future-proofing problems with branding and customizing SharePoint. Probably won’t encourage people to use the system.

(Andy adds …) Don’t make it pixel perfect on colors. Figure out what the underlying problem is.

7. For Site Administrators, how much training do you need to give them? Where do you start?
(Answer) Will take a year to train someone from beginning to “hero.” You need to find the people and train them up. You could use partners in the short term to cover the gaps.