Tag: continuous performance improvement
The following is a video perspective on the blog post “Don’t Confuse a Benchmark with a Goal,” released last week:
I just got back from the
SHARE conference in Atlanta, and while it’s true that the conference is built around SharePoint as a core technology, the conference is really intended to focus on business applications of SharePoint. I’m not going to do a blow-by-blow conference report;
Kristian Kalsing did a pretty good one
here. Instead, I’m going to pick out for you the three drivers that are not only critical to the success of SharePoint-based solutions but really to
any business solution.
- It’s about the business not the technology. When is that last time you experienced or heard the tale of an executive who calls a meeting and says we need an “X”? Recent examples of “X” have included social networking, Kahn Academy, and even Angry Birds. The point being: if you simply take the order and implement your companies version of these tools, the chances of adoption are immediately in danger because nothing in the business is driving the initiative. For example, social networking in and of itself isn’t enough to merit attention, but “connecting the sales force to the engineering staff in near time or real time to shorten the sales cycle by 10 days” is something the organization and your leadership can get behind. The fact that it’s built in SharePoint or any other tool is inconsequential and may be detrimental depending on your organization’s prior experience with the tool (see #3). When it comes time to justify expense or measure ROI of your solution, having real business drivers will be critical.
- You’ll need a roadmap. Every project needs a plan, but a roadmap can be so much more. When attacking tough enterprise issues, you’ve got be certain about what the real problem is and how you are going to measure your fix for the problem. Your roadmap can even include governance for the organization or project and accurate requirements gathering and analysis. Susan Hanley was one of the speakers at the conference on governance and is a great resource on governance issues. Sarah Haase from Best Buy is also a great corporate practitioner; her blog can be found here. Our own John Chapin also has a blog post on roadmap creation.
- Branding is important (don’t call it SharePoint)! Unless your company sells SharePoint or somehow derives income from marketing SharePoint, you won’t do yourself or your users any good by naming your solution after the technology it was built in. This goes for any branded technology. In fact, if your users have a negative impression of that tool, it may actually interfere with user acceptance of the tool. Let’s face it; sometimes users cringe when they hear SharePoint but won’t bat an eye when you call it the “Sales Efficiency Accelerator.” The trick is this: when users visit this mythical application, it can’t contain the elements of poor user experience that caused them to hate the tool in the first place. Branding will get your users to overlook the underlying technology once or twice, but good user experiences will keep them coming back.
Overall, I’m glad I went to the SHARE conference. It’s nice to see a group of people who are focused on the business applications of SharePoint and not just the stability and scalability of a corporate technology platform. After all, the tools we use are only as good as what we use them for.