EndUserSharePoint.com: How do I get End Users to start using SharePoint?
The question of the day comes from Nicole:
I’m the communications lead in the tech department, and, fortunately, I understand the advantages that MOSS 2007 offers over 2003, but am having a hard time distilling that into manageable pieces for folks in other departments (HR, Finance, etc.) to understand. Any ideas, or examples from successful deployments?
Chris Poteet responds:
It sounds as though you have a personnel/training issue and not a purely technological one. You are not alone. Usually what ends up happening is that SharePoint becomes “file share 2.0″ without adding any business value and without leveraging many of the tools in MOSS. Here are a couple of recommendations:
- Instead of feeling like you need to train everyone on everything, find the individuals that are willing to adopt, learn, and evangelize your new implementation.
- Focus on “low hanging fruit” which are features/capabilities in MOSS that can show them how proper governance and architecture can effectively and efficiently solve real-world problems.
- Have “brown baggers” where users can be shown concepts in MOSS they might not have been familiar with.
- You could also add incentives for training such as disabling MySites for the user until they complete some form of administration training.
- In your deployment, don’t feel as though you need to activate and use every feature. Maintain focus and expand over time.
Mark Miller responds:
Chris makes two strong points I’d like to expand on a bit: no need to train everyone on everything, and brown bag demos.
End Users are overwhelmed with the capabilities and functionality of SharePoint. Any education process must include a walk-away action item that can be implemented and have an immediate effect in the work environment. At the beginning of each one of my workshops, I ask the participants to keep a notebook handy. Any time they hear something they think might be useful in their everyday work environment, I have them write it down.
At the end of the session, I have them review their list and choose one item they will implement and use immediately. They say this out loud, to the group. This gives them something tangible to do instead of going back to their desk and wondering where to get started. The added benefit is that by telling the group, they become committed and accountable for actually implementing the solution.
The other thing Chris mentioned is “brown bags”, quick demos that can be given while people are on a coffee break or during lunch. My recommendation would be for you to find some people in the company who are using SharePoint and have them demo one section of their site that is working well for them. Announce the demo date and time, provide some coffee and donuts and keep the demo under 15 minutes. This way, people will get the idea it’s not just IT and corp who are pushing this thing.
End User buy-in is tough. Nobody thinks of SharePoint as their “job”. It’s just another tool that gets in the way of getting their job done. Showing real world examples of how SharePoint can have an immediate difference in everyday workflow will get your foot in the door when people are ready to start using it.
Chris Poteet
Siolon.com
Chris has been developing web applications in increasing complexity over the last 8 years. He has a degree in Management Information Systems with an emphasis on Information Architecture.
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Mark Miller
EndUserSharePoint.com
Mark works with SharePoint everyday. That doesn’t mean he understands it, he just works with it.
Hi,
As always I find very interesting posts in your blog.
An important point, in my opinion, is to find a “sponsor” inside your company.
If you are able to attract a manager, the Director or someone else and evangelize them on the really advantages using Sharepoint, then everything will flow more smoothly. In my experience, you should have a strong sponsor who helps you. Of couse I totally agree about formation of other people and an excellent support for them, in the first period of the deployment.
Thanks again for the work for the community and sorry for my poor English.
Ciao
Guido
Guido – Nice point that I missed. Without a sponsor pushing from the top, it is extremely hard to move the implementation forward. This is not just in SharePoint, but with any major change within the company. Thanks for pointing that out.
By the way, your English is 1000 times better than my Italian.
Ciao, Baby.
Mark
@Guido: That’s a good point. That is usually found in governance.
I’m also finding that if your project team can identify “power users” and invite them to certain meetings they get very excited and become evangelists. The more departments you seed with evangelists, the less resistance you get at launch.
One guy requested a secure wiki site last year and never got it. We invited him to a meeting where we discussed user permissions and content. He was practically running out of the meeting to tell his coworkers how cool SharePoint is.
One of the other things that really helps with an implementation is the immediate takeaway idea that was presented in this post. Once a user has a reason to use SharePoint, it spreads much like an addiction.
I just finished up a meeting with one of my slower adopters of SharePoint. He had a need that was easily solved with SharePoint, and he came to me since we were able to solve a previous problem. He’s now quickly becoming one of my biggest SharePoint pushers… and it helps that he is a director as well!
Chris