sharepoint governance home truths

(c) Seven Sigma Business Solutions 2011

N E W ZE A LA N D SHAREPOINT CONFERENCE M A R C H 1 6 + 1 7 2 0 1 1

(c) Seven Sigma Business Solutions 2011 (c) Seven Sigma Business Solutions 2011

ON BEHALF OF AUSTRALIA TO NEW ZEALAND

#SPSQUASH

Better luck next year Hadlee


SHAREPOINT GOVERNANCE

HOME TRUTHS

Paul Culmsee


PAUL CULMSEE CISSP, MCSE, MCT, MCTS

• Partner - Seven Sigma Business Solutions (Perth)

• SharePoint architect, trainer, facilitator and agony aunt

• Sense-making practitioner and facilitator for large scale

complex projects (non IT)

• Speaker and author:

• SharePoint Best Practice Conferences, Business Analyst World Conference,

CleverWorkarounds, EndUserSharePoint.com and SharePointMagazine.net

• One of four certified Dialogue Mappers worldwide


SETTING SOME CONTEXT…

• SharePoint governance and successful delivery is just as much art as science.

• Practitioners need:

• Deep product expertise and technical skill

• Deep understanding of the softer side of SharePoint delivery.

• Guess which one we suck at?

• Many aspects of this talk have been influenced by my non IT work as a sensemaker on complex projects.

• Urban planning, community engagement, infrastructure delivery, strategic planning, team and relationship building, performance management and various other scenarios

http://myextralife.com/56geeks/


SHAREPOINT PROJECT PAIN…

• “They don‟t know what they want!”

• “The requirements are too vague!”

• “If only they had listened to me”

• “Not another %$%$% meeting!”

• “I was never consulted”

• “This is ridiculous – it won‟t work”

• “How am I supposed to estimate that?“

• “It was in the minutes – did you read it?”

• “Well if everyone actually followed the process…”

• Special Journalist addendum:

“…yes, this conversation is definitely off the record”

Slide 6


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Management f-LAWS: How Organizations Really Work

Russell Ackoff and Herbert Addison


F-LAWS

“f-Laws are truths about organisations that

we might wish to deny or ignore – simple

and more reliable guides to everyday

behaviour than the complex truths

proposed by scientists, economists,

sociologists, politicians and philosophers”


THE MORE COMPREHENSIVE

THE DEFINITION OF

“GOVERNANCE” IS, THE LESS IT

WILL BE UNDERSTOOD BY ALL

F-LAW 1


FACT!

Governance originates from the Latin word

“to steer”.

Latin: gubernatio (“„management, government‟”), Ancient Greek kubernesis, "steering,

pilotage, guiding" < kubernao, “„I steer, drive, guide, pilot‟”).


KEY TAKEAWAY

Governance is the means to an

end

You do not need to over-define it to understand it

By working to achieve the agreed end in mind

you are governing!


KEY TAKEAWAY

Do all participants understand what the end in

mind is?


F-LAW 2

THERE IS NO POINT IN ASKING

USERS WHO DON‟T KNOW WHAT

THEY WANT, TO SAY WHAT THEY

WANT

Corollary: There is even less point in thinking that you already know what they want


KNOWING VS. LEARNING

Cognexus Institute www.cognexus.org


OPPORTUNITY DRIVEN LEARNING

“The truth about Einstein is he didn't arrive at his famous

equation by complex mathematical reasoning. In fact,

he didn't use mathematical or scientific reasoning at

all!”


It just came to him...

“Einstein was intrigued by „holes‟ in prevailing theories.

He enjoyed posing „mind riddles‟ to himself, just to see if

present theories could satisfactorily explain them.

Einstein refused to give up until he solved the riddle. He

didn't stay with this riddle for just a week or two, as you

or I might have done. He didn't even quit after a year or

two of racking his brain.

He stuck with the riddle for...

Joseph W. Graham


... TEN FULL YEARS!

1895 1905

E=MC2


KEY TAKEAWAY

For a problem that is novel or requires learning

for participants, they will examine potential

solutions just to explain the problem

Each instance of examining the solution will

impact the understanding of the problem


KEY TAKEAWAY

• Expect fluid requirements

• Expect scope changes

• Involve stakeholders!

• Expect resistance and pullback

• Plan for prototyping

• Be adaptable

• Do not penalise people for their learning


THE PROBABILITY OF PROJECT

SUCCESS IS INVERSELY

PROPORTIONAL TO THE TIME

TAKEN TO COME UP WITH A

MEASURABLE KPI

F-LAW 3


WHAT PROJECT IS THIS?


DIVERGENCE – MULTIPLE FUTURE STATES


KEY TAKEAWAY

If you cannot tell me the difference made

by implementing SharePoint, how can

anyone else know the difference?

Even if you can, how do you know that

everybody else sees it the same way as

you?


F-LAW 4

MOST STATED GOVERNANCE

OBJECTIVES ARE PLATITUDES –

THEY SAY NOTHING BUT HIDE

BEHIND WORDS

Corollary: Most governance platitudes simply

reflect the broader project platitude


AN OLYMPIC CLASS PLATITUDE…

“The Montgomery Burns Award for Outstanding Achievement in

the Field of Excellence"


GUESS WHO?

“Our mission is to conduct all of our

businesses, both energy and financial related,

with four key values in mind: respect, integrity,

communication and excellence. All business

dealings must be conducted in an environment

that is open and fair”.

Enron mission statement (yeah – that Enron)


THE PLATITUDE INDICATOR

If you cannot reasonably disagree

with an objective, or measure it, then it is

a platitude

“Most corporate mission statements are worthless. They

often formulate necessities as objectives; for example, "to

achieve sufficient profit." This is like a person saying his

mission is to breathe sufficiently.”

Russell Ackoff


FOR EXAMPLE...

“Collaboration will be encouraged”

“A best-practice collaboration platform”

“To provide an effective collaborative experience for our users”

“We are striving for operational excellence”

“It’s a SharePoint project”


A BUFFET OF PLATITUDES...


DIVERGENCE - MULTIPLE FUTURE STATES!


A NON PLATITUDE EXAMPLE

“To produce high-quality, low cost, easy to use

products that incorporate high technology for

the individual. We are proving that high

technology does not have to be intimidating for

noncomputer experts."

Apple Mission Statement


SHAREPOINT NON PLATITUDES

We are proving that through better information

management, we can improve our customer

relationship and trust building without over-burdening

our staff”

“We are proving that we can grow the organisation

while reducing email volumes and centralising

document storage”

“By building communities of practice, we prove that we

can reduce information overload and allow our users to

find the right expertise”


KEY TAKEAWAYS

• A platitude is like a mirage. It looks like a

goal, but in reality it is nothing

• Platitudes delude us into thinking that we

have an end in mind when we actually do

not

• Don‟t confuse the means with the end.

Always ask what difference the means will

make, rather than trying to come up with a

universal definition for it (f-law 1)


CONFIDENCE IS THE FEELING

YOU HAVE UNTIL YOU

UNDERSTAND THE PROBLEM

F-LAW 5


BACK TO DIVERGENCE...


DIVERGENCE AND CONVERGENCE


SHAREPOINT PROJECTS


LEFT BRAINED PEOPLE

Left brained people tend to think about the

HOW to help them understand the WHAT.

Left brain people are more comfortable with “how”. They are

uncomfortable with undefined problems (what), so they often

substitute the “how” for the “what”


RIGHT BRAINED PEOPLE

Right brained people tend to think about the

WHAT to help them understand the HOW.

Right brain people are more comfortable with “what”. They enjoy

exploring the what, but get uncomfortable in the detail (how) so they

often substitute the “what” for the “how”


THIS WILL FEEL GOOD FOR SOME…


…BUT ONLY IN THE SHORT TERM


GOVERNING BY FORCE...


...IS A NON STARTER


WHAT AND HOW NEED EACH OTHER


PEOPLE REMEMBER LEGACY, NOT SCOPE

The Opera House was formally completed in 1973, having cost $102 million.

The original cost estimate in 1957 was $7 million. The original completion date

set by the government was 1963. Thus, the project was completed ten years late

and over-budget by more than fourteen times.


ONE “BEST PRACTICE” TO RULE THEM ALL

Ensure a shared understanding of the problem among all participants

“The „Holy Grail‟ of effective collaboration is creating shared understanding, which is a precursor to shared commitment”

Jeff Conklin


KEY TAKEAWAY

The only way to converge to a solution is to

achieve a shared commitment among

participants

The only way to achieve shared commitment is

a shared understanding of the problem among

participants

This is the essence of governance


AN INTERLUDE…

http://www.cleverworkarounds.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/image33.png


ISSUE MAPPING


WILL THIS REACH SHARED UNDERSTANDING?


BENEFITS OF ISSUE MAPPING

Simple, intuitive, adds clarity to discussion

Limited short term memory means exploration of a complex problem unaided

is confusing and error prone

All participants have an organised point of reference

We have captured decision rationale and organisational memory!

Democratic - Acknowledges all contributions

Disarms “truth by repetition”

Disarms “grenade lobbing” (topic shift)

Takes the interpersonal “sting” out of supporting or objecting to an idea

Faster - allows a group to develop shared understanding with much less

pain


ISSUE MAPPING WITH OTHER FRAMEWORKS

Maintain your other standards or frameworks

IM emphasis at the problem/requirements definition phase

Easy for participants – no new “dance moves” to learn

Complimentary to any methodology or practice (Prince2, Scrum)


LEVERAGE IM AND SHAREPOINT

Use Issue Mapping to understand the problem

• Allows for understanding to emerge through dialogue

• Capture decision rationale for the future

Use SharePoint to manage and track the solution

• Documents and reports still need managing

• Data needs to be managed, tracked and distributed

• Issue maps need to be stored, classified and indexed!

Holy Grail - Present issue maps within SharePoint sites

• SharePoint project sites containing the latest *thinking* via an integrated issue map


COMING SOON TO SHAREPOINT…


SUMMING UP

• SharePoint Governance is a means to an end

– Governance is informed by end in mind

• Achieving shared understanding among participants is *paramount*

– Later best practices can be undone by failure to achieve this goal

– Watch for platitudes masquerading as an objective or goal

– Do not penalise people for their learning

• IBIS and Issue Mapping are a key complimentary tool

– Designed *specifically* to help facilitate groups achieve shared unerstanding with much less pain

– Great tool to deal with divergent stakeholder views

• When used to their strengths, Issue Mapping and SharePoint can be a very potent combination


MORE INFORMATION

• SharePoint Governance and Information Architecture Master Class

• 2 day class chock full of Paul’s dogma :-)

• Register your interest with myself, Debbie, Chan or Mark to run a class in New

Zealand

• Seven Sigma Business Solutions (www.sevensigma.com.au)

• SharePoint Information Architecture and Governance Training

• Issue and Dialogue Mapping Training

• CleverWorkarounds Blog (www.cleverworkarounds.com)

• SharePoint Project Management, Strategy and Governance

• “The one best practice to rule them all” - 5 part series

• “Why do SharePoint projects fail” - 6 part series

http://www.sevensigma.com.au/

http://www.cleverworkarounds.com/


QUESTIONS

How to contact me…

Paul Culmsee

[email protected]

@paulculmsee

+61 410 533 585

(very partial to beer)

Slide 85

mailto:[email protected]


Gold Sponsors

Silver Sponsors

Bronze Sponsors

sharepoint governance home truths

Technology