SharePoint’s flexibility is both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness.  The capabilities of SharePoint far exceed those that user communities are accustomed to receiving in a software solution.  Given this, when they are first exposed to these capabilities your users may feel intimidated by SharePoint’s complexity and frustrated by its menus and cryptic options.  Here are some ideas about how best to use SharePoint’s flexibility to gain greater adoption of the platform within your environment.

Users Are Used to the Idea of "Beta". Use that to your advantage.

Your user community has been reading in the newspaper and on web sites (although, but probably _not_ via RSS feeds) about Microsoft’s latest beta product or a free software that’s available for download and trial.  They are familiar with the idea of a product being released in Beta in order to gain valuable feedback on its functions and capabilities. To your users, beta means something along the lines of: ‘We built this software for your use and are offering it for free because we’re not quite certain that everything in it is fully baked.  You can use this new software we’ve built, and we will protect any data that you enter into it, but don’t expect for it to be a 100% tested solution.’

The term Beta implies a contract with the user to mean that you are trying earnestly to move the environment forward through the use of a SharePoint solution that still requires some work. Framing the conversation around SharePoint in this way communicates to them that you will need their help in the form of feedback, error reporting, enhancement requests, etc.

Given that people support what they help create, framing your SharePoint solutions as "beta" can be a win-win after you integrate the great idea that came out of the Accounting meeting in Conference Room 8.  Additionally, the concept of Beta also allows you to move the environment forward more rapidly.  Don’t wait for the solution to be 100% correct and spend 7 months of grueling coding to get it there.  Get it to 80% ready in 5 weeks and release it with incremental enhancements being released on a scheduled basis.  This will serve to show your users that SharePoint is here to stay given that you are focused on its care and feeding through enhancements.

People are Resistant to Change. Find out Why!

As a general rule, people don’t enjoy change and they certainly don’t easily embrace a change in the way they have been doing work for the past several years. Change is often seen as something to avoid at all costs. All things being equal, people will choose things to remain the way that they are, even if they are slightly broken or dysfunctional, so that they don’t have to take on something new and change their mode of work.

And who can blame them? How many ‘enhanced’ systems have we as IT Professionals rolled out that end up going nowhere that don’t deliver on the promises of reduced workload and increased efficiency? Personally, I can think of several projects off the top of my head where this occurred.  Help people to understand the platform and figure out how SharePoint can help them in their work and overcome their resistance by frequent and specific communication. ASK THEM why they aren’t using the system or why they are so resistant, don’t just dig your heels in and say, “Well, this is the way it’s going to be and this is what we’re going to use from now on.”  Resistance is a form of fear which can be overcome by education, patience, more education and copious amounts of chocolate and Twizzlers for bribery.

Don’t Try to Boil the Ocean

Oftentimes, SharePoint is rolled out with great fanfare and is lauded as a superior solution to a huge number of business challenges. “We’re transforming our organization through collaboration”, the mass e-mail notification might say.  Well, you’re users have heard that before, haven’t they? Remember that CRM solution that was rolled out that no one used because they, quite simply, were completely against sharing all of their contact information and reconciling it against the contact lists of their peers? How about the ERP system that has been rolled out 4 times since last November because it’s such a huge undertaking that touches 19 departments?

Help your user community avoid negative feelings about your SharePoint rollout by keeping the rollout of capabilities metered.  Take it slow and release 2 or 3 really great things at a time instead of releasing 15 or 16 good things. Focus on quality over quantity.  Don’t leave your users feeling as if they have been drinking from the fire hose when they leave your training class and their head is spinning.

Allow the System to Grow Organically…with Governance

Organic growth of SharePoint is an amazing thing to behold when it’s fostered with an end-goal in mind. When users are able to create their own business solutions, assuming that they have the knowledge, passion and ability to do this, they can create SharePoint sites that will blow your mind.  User-generated sites are amazing simply because they address a team’s unique, specific needs directly and immediately.  I’ve spoken with more than a few SharePoint professionals that expect miracles to occur when their users take over the platform.  They say things like, "Governance will stifle my user’s creativity so we don’t want to consider doing a governance engagement right now".

That’s all fine, but the best approach is one that allows both the organic growth you desire while placing guardrails on the road to keep your users from driving off into the SharePoint ravine and dashing their site on the rocks below.  Governance should not mean, “Let’s lock things down and then have our users beg, plea and hope for us to open it back up.”  It should mean what it means in parenting: “I want you to have fun and explore, but when I say ‘watch out for that sharp thing over there’ trust that I have your best interests in mind.”  Given your users boundaries within which to be successful and help them to learn how to build-out their sites (yes, this includes the use of SharePoint Designer).  Then stand back and watch the magic happen.

Next: Educate on the Tool

Lee Reed is a SharePoint Consultant and Business Analyst in Atlanta, GA and is laser focused on helping companies leverage their SharePoint investment to accomplish their business goals. His passion is in demystifying technology and increasing information worker collaboration.  He has trained over 2,500 end-users on the proper use of SharePoint 2007 and its supporting applications and is a frequent speaker at SharePoint Saturday.