SharePoint Training & Adoption

I am currently looking at a sustainable framework for end user training of SharePoint. By sustainable,  I mean the framework needs to operate at the dismissal of traditional classroom methods and allow for users and admins to consume training in bite sized features that can be delivered on demand when they need it most with the least amount of Technology Support required. There are some good solutions available, personally I find Lynda.com of great use across a variety of subjects. For SharePoint specific Combined Knowledge and SharePoint Videos are worthy of a mention as well as CBT Nuggets .

It’s of course worth mentioning that to develop a successful adoption methodology, you must consider all varieties of education and awareness. The use of a SharePoint Publishing Site to house information and product capability information (beginners 101 to answer the ‘What is SharePoint’ question) as well as learning lunches, executive breifings and growing your Change Agent community is key also.

Always keep the end user in mind and importantly, measure what your doing to have a tangible method of proving ROI.

Vendor Community Support for SharePoint

Across all platforms, the internet has a plethora of knowledge which is freely accessible. In terms of SharePoint, Sharegates Twitter feed remains one of my favourite vendor sources for quick access to top tips and easy read articles.

Follow @sharegatetools

SharePoint Adoption is a Plane Crash.

A title that hopefully gets your attention, but let me explain.

Successful adoption comes from the creation of a community that develops and supports each other, not just purely through traditional academic based training.

In the same way you see the big blockbuster movies where the victims of an unexpected plane crash work together to support each other and develop new ways of survival (SharePoint analogy for ways of working), and not through a learning session on how to survive.

By the development of SharePoint champions and super users, the need for Technology departments to hand hold and educate becomes less and the trust for the solution and support grows between the peers in the user community. IT can take a step back and watch the community grow and mature, only providing guidance through governance and the introduction of new features and capabilities when required.

Makes sense doesn’t it?

What makes presentations effective?

So many of us are involved in creating and delivering presentations in our line of work. Often there is debate around the look and feel, whether slides are too ‘wordy’, lacking in the correct message or aimed at the wrong type of audience. 

I have played with many styles and formations, of late I have seen and been presented to with content which is more illustrative and relying on the presenter to deliver the words that convey the message behind each slide – a technique I like. From a presenters perspective, does give you a bit more freedom over what needs to be said rather than just reading whats on screen. 

Here is an infographic with more tips to consider, see which ones work for you. 

 

SharePoint Application Development Overview

Good source of information for anyone looking to gain an understanding of the development opportunities within SharePoint 2013.

Office Dev Center : SharePoint 2013

Not recommending whether an application development approach based on SharePoint is the right/wrong approach, you may have reasons to consider an Application Development Strategy that remains abstract from SharePoint but still focused on the MS Toolset as a principle for example.

Everything as a service

Taking Microsoft’s continued promotion of mobile first, cloud first aside, it’s clear that the everything as a service (EaaS) model is appealing to companies requiring agility and flexibility from their IT departments. It doesn’t remove the need for IT presence within an organisation, but does allow the department to provide value through the Business & IT relationship and less on the build, run and maintain activities.

Yammer: Agile Working Game Changer?

Good article on how Microsoft has become a more productive organisation through its own use of Yammer.

Have to admit, all the success examples I have read about Yammer cites Supply Chain and Product build scenarios where people collaborate on the production of a ‘thing’. Not all teams work in that area but we can start to thing about our outputs as product based, and therefore usage of Yammer over and above just ‘business chat’ can be applied.

TechEd North America : Cloudy but Nice

Some interesting things coming out of TechEd this week. Interesting to hear that Microsoft didn’t release any new OnPrem products – a first!

ESPC14 in Summary – Bueno

So that’s my trip to Barcelona and SharePoint Europe 14 over. So many highlights and a worthwhile trip. Too many individual situations and sessions to mention in detail, but did leave thinking all there was to life is Cloud, Cloud, Cloud – and a bit of Mobile and Storage thrown in for good measure.

That’s the continuation of the Mobile and Cloud first strategy from Microsoft, the key will be how the big organisations will adapt and at what pace, the smaller ones have it a lot easier in this space and therefore be able to get early access to all the features that drip feed down in latter stages to the OnPrem platforms and customers.

Some great discussions had on Governance, Contextual Thinking (take a bow Oslo and Office Graph) and SharePoint adoption, agility and Business value. Good to be in the presence of so many MVP’s, specialists and a community willing to share experienced and knowledge.

Well done @EuropeanSp and special mentions to Dan Holme (@DanHolme), SharePoint Geoff (@GeoffEvE) and Erica Toelle (@EricaToelle) .

Here’s to next year!

Day 2 @ SharePoint Europe

Another good day at SharePoint Conference 14, has given me further thoughts and themes to think about re SharePoint adoption which was also helped by a lunch catchup with @EricaToelle. Real big push on Cloud adoption and the 365 agenda, can’t deny the principles and rationale leave you feeling ‘why not?’ To quote @DanHolme, need to ask the difficult questions around risk, cost and IT agility.

And the weather remains nice…..