5 Reasons Why Executive SharePoint Ignorance is Not Bliss (Part 1)

The job of how to implement SharePoint in an organization should not be in the hands of the IT department. It belongs with the business and the backing of executive decision makers. Here's why.

Editor's Note: Vote for your favorite SharePoint 2010 topic. We'll adjust our SharePoint coverage to focus on what you, our readers, want to know (but do it now, we'll close the poll on November 30th).

Our SharePoint implementation was unsuccessful because management just doesn't get it! Our CIO decided one day that I'm the SharePoint guru because I'm the Windows system administrator in our company. I was asked to install and deploy SharePoint to our 500 users within three months. This was a year ago and today, as you can imagine, SharePoint is not being fully utilized, users still can't find what they need and management is questioning why SharePoint is not delivering its promise of improved collaboration.

…lamented a systems administrator after one of my recent talks. Does this sound familiar?

In a lot of organizations, it’s quite common to see IT getting the blame for poor SharePoint implementation and adoption. However, equally responsible are high-level decision makers who made the decision to roll out SharePoint yet don't have a clear understanding of the value it brings to the organization.

Here are five reasons why executive SharePoint ignorance is not bliss:

1. SharePoint is More Than a Glorified Network Share

Organizations today primarily utilize SharePoint as a file-sharing repository. In addition, it may have been haphazardly deployed by IT because management told them to. Strategic planning never happened and it’s just another tool that was thrown out there for the enterprise.

In my experience, there is a lack of awareness amongst executives that SharePoint is an enterprise platform. In fact, Microsoft defines SharePoint 2010 as ”the business collaboration platform for the Enterprise and the Web”.

SharePoint is much more than just a document management tool, it can be used for enterprise line of business needs such as: Intranet Portals, Reporting, Business Intelligence, Content Management, Workflow Automation, Records management, Public-facing websites, etc. For more details, read “Empowering Your Organization with SharePoint” whitepaper that showcases various examples on how SharePoint can be leveraged.

More importantly, SharePoint can empower everyone in an organization (mostly non-technical individuals) to deploy software-based solutions without IT intervention. Here’s a video showing how a project manager can benefit from SharePoint:

SharePoint Empowers Users from Dux Raymond Sy on Vimeo.

2. It's All About the Benjamins

With tight budgets these days, how organizations spend their money is put under a microscope. That’s why it is critical for any decision maker to be fully aware of the benefits SharePoint can bring to an organization.

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Tags: business collaboration, document management, enterprise 2.0, enterprise cms, governance, records management, sharepoint, sharepoint 2010

The job of how to implement SharePoint in an organization should not be in the hands of the IT department. It belongs with the business and the backing of executive decision makers. Here's why.

Editor's Note: Vote for your favorite SharePoint 2010 topic. We'll adjust our SharePoint coverage to focus on what you, our readers, want to know (but do it now, we'll close the poll on November 30th).