Tag Archives: sharepoint

I wrote a book about governance: ‘Digital success or digital disaster?’

Posted on May 11, 2015 | Leave a comment

Book cover - Digital success or digital disastersWhen an intranet loses its usefulness over time, and people become disengaged and end up working around it rather than through it, I often find that the strategy and governance have been neglected.

Even a strong and appropriate strategy will founder if the governance isn’t in place to execute it.

I see governance as the foundation of a great intranet, and by ‘great’ I mean an intranet that is useful, useable, and supports the organisation’s goals and people’s needs.

I often blog about intranet governance, but my brand new book offers a lot more than I could ever drip-feed via short posts.  Writing a book has helped crystallise my thinking around governance, and delve deep into my past experience as an intranet manager, and as a consultant.

Take a look at my book now – it’s called ‘Digital success or digital disaster?’ and I mean for it to be relevant to intranets, collaboration, digital workplace and mobile workspace governance, while focussing on intranets.

I’m so pleased to have it published through Intranätverk, it’s been great to work with Kristian Norling and his team.  Seeing the final book on my tablet has made the months of writing all worth the effort.  I’m thrilled to be able to offer you my experience, guidance, and tips and hope you’ll consider my book a toolkit to better governance and a better intranet.

Please take a look at what the book offers you and your organisation – this is a ‘business book’ that should help organisations of every size, but I also hope it’s of interest to individual practitioners and ‘lone intranet managers’. I think this book can support you.

* Digital success or digital disaster? – Book available now.

* Follow me on – let me know what you think!

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Posted in application, benchmark, benefit, best practice, beta testing, blog, career, collaboration, communication, community, content management, digital success or digital disaster, digital workplace, engagement, governance, help, homepage, intranet, mark morrell ltd, mobile, mybook, navigation, news, Office 365, plan, podcast, publishing, research, , search, SharePoint, social media, standards, strategy, training, usability, user testing, value, web accessibility, wiki

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For new intranets it is day 100, not day 1, that is important

Posted on April 28, 2015 | Leave a comment

With every intranet I have helped to create, encouraging people to be more effective and improve their productivity, two things have been at the forefront of my mind.  You need to:

  1. Be clear who is responsible for the content, design and structure of it.
  2. Have a governance framework that supports stakeholders, partners and publishers.

While it is vital you have a big impact when you launch a new intranet, it is not just about creating a great design on day 1.  It is the ongoing need to appeal to people to continue using it.  Content and applications that people need are, of course, helpful but having good governance is the only way to make sure the benefits of day 1 continue consistently through to day 100 and onwards during the lifetime of your intranet.

After nearly 20 years working with intranets, I appreciate how important it is to have a governance framework that:

  1. Keeps your strategy moving in the right direction
  2. Sets out who is responsible for managing it
  3. Matches publishing standards with business requirements
  4. Supports content owners and editors

These can be the crucial factors that help your new intranet.  Quicker adoption, increased usage and higher satisfaction are all achieveable if you take the right approach with governance.

I find these factors encourage people using your intranet to be more effective and improve their productivity, bringing greater benefits to your organisation.  It helps your stakeholders to see how your intranet can be a critical business tool that supports their key priorities!

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Posted in benefit, best practice, governance, intranet, SharePoint, standards

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It’s time for a change

Posted on November 17, 2014 | Leave a comment

I have been fortunate to work with and view many sites, intranets, digital workplaces, mobile and collaborative spaces since 1996.  Many technology features and fads aimed at helping people have a good experience have come and gone. However, throughout this time, having a clear strategy with good governance to support your intranet, has consistently been shown to help meet your organisation’s key priorities and add measurable value.

Your strategy sets the direction you need to move in with a clear scope and set of aims to be achieved, aligned with other related strategies and overall strategy for your organisation.

Your governance framework helps your strategy continue in the right direction.  It will show how you manage everything and how everyone can work together. It will cover scope, purpose, roles and responsibilities, publishing standards and support, and resources needed.

The main reason for a strategy and governance framework is the benefits to be gained from applying it well. The time and effort are the same but the impact can vary so you don’t always achieve a consistently good experience.

Measuring all the benefits and showing the value to your organisation of a critical business tool will improve your credibility and help to justify future investment.

With that in mind I have re-designed my site to focus on Strategy; Governance; and Measuring Value.

Please contact me if you want to find out more.

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Posted in benefit, best practice, collaboration, communication, digital workplace, governance, intranet, mobile, Office 365, SharePoint, strategy, value

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Are you moving to the Cloud?

Posted on November 13, 2014 | Leave a comment

I recently posted about the challenges organisations face as they move from having online content and tools hosted firmly on their estate to renting space in the cloud.

I believe the way forward is to have a governance framework and information architecture with the same scope to avoid gaps in content being managed or not being found.  Both need to be in harmony and included in any digital strategy.

If you want to join the live breakfast talk in Gothenburg, or online seminar and discussion and Q&A using G+ Hangout, it is on 20 November 8.00AM – 10AM Central European Time.

You can also read these posts about how to move to the Cloud:

  1. Wagon Trains to the Cloud: The most common challenges you are likely to face and how you may overcome these
  2. Pace-Layering the Building Blocks in the Cloud: How Office 365 and SharePoint can play a part in moving to the Cloud
  3. Housekeeping rules within the Habitat: How they can help join up your organisation online using their collaboration tools and features
  4. The Curator – how to cultivate the habitat: Engagement and how sorting and categorisation of artifacts form the curation and cultivation process
  5. Content Governance – life cycle and reach: Governance and how content should be managed in the Cloud

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Posted in content management, digital workplace, engagement, governance, intranet, Office 365, plan, search, SharePoint, standards, strategy

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SharePoint, Office 365 and moving to the Cloud

Posted on November 4, 2014 | Leave a comment

I was asked by Fredric Landqvist, my good friend and Information Architecture genius, to contribute to a series of posts on the challenges organisations face as they move from having online content and tools hosted firmly on their estate to renting space in the cloud.

We believe the way forward is to have a governance framework and information architecture with the same scope to avoid gaps in content being managed or not being found.  Both need to be in harmony and included in any digital strategy.

We will help you to consider the options and guide on the following steps:

  1. Strategy: Goals you are aiming for
  2. Plan: Moving content to the cloud
  3. Information Architecture: Structuring your content
  4. Governance Framework: Managing your content

You can also join our live breakfast talk in Gothenburg, or online seminar and discussion and Q&A using G+ Hangout, the 20th November 8.00AM – 10AM Central European Time

I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed contributing to them.

 

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Posted in content management, digital workplace, governance, intranet, SharePoint, standards, strategy

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Getting the full value out of SharePoint

Posted on May 20, 2014 | Leave a comment

I recently posted on how you create a strategy that helps you to implement SharePoint successfully.  I then posted on how you to develop the right level of governance to manage SharePoint well.  But how do you gain the full benefits that SharePoint offers?  And how should you be measure it?

There are three areas you should prioritise:

  1. Productivity improvements: time saved solving problems using SharePoint instead of meeting in person to do this.  There are the costs of travelling avoided too.
  2. Savings in hardware, support costs and licences from moving content and tools on existing technology to SharePoint.
  3. Business intelligence can lead to opportunities to increase revenue through quicker responses to sales leads and customer service problems.

You may have other areas.  The key is to understand what business benefits you could gain from using SharePoint.

My first-hand experience at BT and from working with clients is that you benefit from using SharePoint.  It is your approach which is critical!

You can out more information on how to measure the full value of SharePoint to help you

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Posted in benefit, best practice, content management, intranet, SharePoint, SharePoint 2010, value

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Chaotic or consistent: What is your intranet experience?

Posted on March 25, 2014 | Leave a comment

I recently wrote a guest post on how you can change a chaotic intranet experience into a more consistent and better experience.  I showed how a governance framework that has roles, responsibilities, and publishing standards that are implemented smartly can encourage people to use the tools and information more frequently and deeply with consistent design, features and structure.

You can read ‘Chaotic or consistent: What is your intranet experience?’ here.

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Posted in best practice, beta testing, content management, governance, intranet, navigation, SharePoint, standards, training, value

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