SharePoint Roles Wes Preston 0
Abstract An introduction to the roles necessary for implementing SharePoint. Differentiating between roles, identifying the responsibilities and importance of each role and how roles work together. Come gain an understanding of where you fit and what the gaps are in your staffing implementation. Learn how roles and needs change over the course of an implementation, project or platform life-cycle as well as the differences between on-premises, cloud and hybrid scenarios and specific business needs (BI, Intranet, Search, etc ). 1
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Wes Preston Owner / Principal Consultant - TrecStone Based in Minneapolis, MN MVP SharePoint Server MCITP SharePoint Admin 2010 MCTS - SharePoint 2010, Config. MCTS - WSS 3.0 and MOSS Config. http://www.idubbs.com/blog Twitter: @idubbs 3
Outline Roles and Responsibilities How they work together Role evolution over time / maturity On premises, Cloud, Hybrid Gaps in staffing an implementation Project and platform lifecycle Specific scenarios and needs (Intranet, etc ) 4
Traditional Buckets The three most common roles, buckets, groups that are recognized by Microsoft and the community MSDN vs. TechNet nbsp.com, etc. Users Starting to see some Business / Decision Maker targeting IT Pros Developers 5
Take Note A role does not always equal a job / position Don t worry. You don t need someone staffing all of this right away. You aren t going to blow your whole budget out of the water but you should be thinking about these roles for growth Implement the Crawl, Walk, Run approach. Get the basics up and running Many of the roles can overlap with existing resources to get started Just keep resources and roles in mind as it matures 6
Some Roles Executive Champion Platform owner (mgmt./team) Project Manager IT Pro Partner IT groups/owners Business Analyst Developer Designer QA / QC Platform team 7
But wait, there s more Executive Champion Platform owner (mgmt./team) Project Manager IT Pro Partner IT groups/owners Business Analyst Developer Designer QA / QC Platform team User Power User Site Collection Admin Governance Committee Help Desk Trainers Information Architect Search Administrator HR / Legal / Compliance 8
Roles, Needs, and Skill Gaps Driven by business needs to be able to deliver appropriate solutions Initial needs and gaps will be identified by PM and Platform owners Can be managed by using Crawl, Walk, Run approach out of box or simple solutions may be created without deep knowledge, but deeper solutions will need more experienced resources 9
Core Roles 10
Executive Champion The need: Pave the way to success Needs to provide company direction and buy-in to the platform Define and communicate how the platform addresses company initiatives, directives and priorities Direct IT and business to work together Integration with other platforms Replacement of other platforms 11
Platform Owner Typically an IT manager that has other platforms and responsibilities as well Development, Server groups, etc. Provides priorities when SharePoint to do list starts growing (usually pretty quickly) Determines staffing needs and alignment Role sometimes assigned to non-it when the need is initially business-driven, but ultimately changes hands back to IT 12
Project Manager SharePoint platform success is dependent on not trying to do too much at once Break the effort into manageable chunks General / Initial implementation (hardware, etc.) Each business solution Setting up day-to-day operations Identify and assign the right resources/roles to each project or phase Nice to have PMs with SharePoint familiarity, but not required 13
IT Pro Configure and manage servers and farm Service configuration Patching: Windows server and SharePoint Working with SQL and integrated servers for patching Manage Backup and disaster recovery plans/solutions Migration On premises vs. cloud and hybrid Typically comes from existing server mgmt. groups, but needs to be defined by company priorities what is their priority when there is an outage, issue, etc. to be resolved and do you have enough resources to manage what can turn into a company critical platform (SharePoint) when it starts as something less important typical SharePoint evolution within a company. 14
Partner IT Groups SharePoint touches a LOT of other systems and needs to play well with others Servers and network infrastructure Active Directory SQL Server BI / SQL Reporting Services Yammer / Social Outlook / Office integration capabilities 15
Business Analyst Same for SharePoint as they should be doing for anything else understand the business needs and requirements Understand the current process, what works, what doesn t. Works to understand the need and document it Works with the Platform team, architects, power users and developers to define how the solution is delivered/developed *trending towards consultant or architect role 16
Developer Required for any customization which comes in many shapes and forms Extending the platform with custom solutions Apps (2013), solutions, features, workflow, UI/Branding, CSR Typically.NET developers picking up SharePoint skills Need to understand the OOB capabilities Additional object model for SharePoint New processes and best practices On premises vs. cloud deployments are different and have different approaches and limitations 17
Designer User Interface (UI), User Experience (UX) Use the same core web design methods as well as SharePoint-specific implementations of design Apply corporate styles and standards Applying design to the SharePoint platform Define themes / custom looks 18
Quality Assurance / Control Similar to traditional role, but still necessary for customizations, configurations Extremely important for regression testing as system changes and configuration can have farreaching implications 19
What about an Architect? Everyone has a different definition Someone who crosses more than one role Someone with a holistic view and approach to what the platform is being used for A high level view of what the platform capabilities are With or without the ability to actually implement all of them Know when SharePoint is NOT the answer 20
Platform Team Led by Platform Owner with a mix of full time, part time and consulting resources IT Pro, Dev, Design, BA, PM May include an Architect to lead approach decisions Plans solutions and approaches (how are team sites architected, requested, managed, etc. ) Manages user requests Creating site collections Initial security of sites until can be delegated to SCAs Taking Help Desk calls until can be handed off to traditional support methods 21
Extended Roles 22
User Users don t care about the tool as much as getting their job done SharePoint is just another tool to them User adoption is a big topic because it s historically been done poorly Generally, the more communication and training that is made available to them, the more successful they are. Understanding the culture of the organization will help target their needs as well 23
User more User types will also be defined and refined as the platform within an organization evolves: Content managers Intranet content Records management Content management Reviewers and approvers Request management Etc 24
Power User Users with the interest and aptitude to learn more about what the SharePoint platform has to offer Pre-2013, these were folks trying out SPD, workflow processes, InfoPath, calculated fields, connected web parts, etc. Lots of options up to and into development topics Start by giving them options to understand as much about the OOB capabilities as they can. Lists, Views, Apps, SPD workflows, etc 25
Site Collection Admin Start out as the administrative contact the bridge from a business team to the SharePoint team. As governance is put in place and user skills ramp up, more responsibilities are decentralized from the SP team to business teams and their site or web administrators Permissions Sub webs Lists and libraries, Web parts, apps, etc Requires some training on specific tasks and governance guidelines 26
Governance Committee A place for IT and business users to meet and shape how the platform is used within the organization Define the platform governance / decisions: Privacy Is people search enabled? What fields are visible? Are profile pictures allowed? Are they centrally controlled or can users upload How will company branding be applied within the intranet, team sites, project sites, the extranet, etc LOTS more 27
Help Desk If your organization has a help desk, they need to be aware of what s coming when you roll out SharePoint. Get specific knowledge articles in their system Get communication and escalation paths in place Be as proactive as possible 28
Trainers Internal or external trainer resources Internally developed or purchased curriculums Need to be a part of the governance plan for training users May eventually evolve to including train the trainer and community training if properly facilitated Be a part of the solution design conversations to assist with training and roll-out 29
Information Architect / Librarian Traditionally undervalued by organizations because they haven t seen the ROI on well-planned and managed data and content Looks at business needs from the data perspective and usually helps produce a better solution Managed metadata Keywords, Taxonomy, folksonomy Minimizes data redundancy and improves consistency across the enterprise Impacts searching and reporting 30
Search Administrator Necessity is impacted by how much search plays a part in your implementation Are your users clickers or searchers Do you have search-based applications? May manage best bets and keywords How much content do you have? How do different types of content need to be surfaced? What search refiners are needed by users? Do you have multiple farms or content that require federation to be searched effectively? 31
HR, Legal, Compliance Initially part of a governance team/committee so they are aware of the platform and what it might be impacting Provide input on intranet and extranet content and management Provide input on content and records management policies 32
Other Notes 33
Filling the gap Internal training Just figure it out as you go Hiring new resources, bringing in temporary resources Skilling up your existing resources Approaches and strategies are a topic for next time 34
Project and Platform Lifecycles Project management of solutions may be simplified by platform team expertise and developing processes Over time more power users will be identified as user adoption and maturity continue Power users will take on basic solution building Site Collection Admin roles will take on more maturity as users mature, governance and training are put in place Training needs will evolve as users mature and build community support solutions (forums, etc ) 35
Take Note When you can, be aware of everyone s hammer Strengths Go-To technologies and platforms Experience and background These aren t bad, but they will bias decisions Because you can provide solutions in SharePoint with a wide variety of approaches, bias comes into play 36
Scenarios 37
Intranet Scenario: Intranet as a first implementation with SharePoint Learning curves will be happening for everyone Executive Champion/Sponsor the effort needs to be driven by the business Platform owner May be just getting up to speed on the platform, requirements, staffing, etc HR and Marketing will have LOTS of influence. Reasonable expectations need to be established 38
Intranet IT Pro Build, configure and manage the farm Up front effort, but can change to lower operational level effort over time Needs to work with partner IT groups Developer Create customized solutions Specific, finite needs and projects can be identified Designer Initial branding Usually not a long-term resource 39
Intranet Project Manager Intranet solutions are usually large enough projects and typically combined with initial platform deployments that PMs are required Governance Committee Start to identify questions for a committee and potential participants Users Consumers: What are their needs? Users Content managers, Reviewers, Approvers Business Analysts What s working, what s not, what s missing with the current intranet? 40
Intranet Help Desk Very high level knowledge articles, system availability, contact information Search Administrator Try to forecast search terms, watch search stats and tweak best bets and keywords Information Architect What information belongs where? Does it belong in the intranet? (even if it was before, it might not ) 41
Others? What other scenarios would you like to talk through? Collaboration sites: teams, projects Search applications / solutions Business Intelligence Dashboards Request management My Sites Extranet Mobile? 42
Questions 43
Thank you! 44