While MOSS is being used for its ubiquitous file sharing capabilities, it is very rarely used for more advanced functions including:

• Web content management

• Digital asset management

• Business Process automation

• Records management

• Forms management

Of those tools and applications that are being used sometimes:

• Search

• Collaboration

• Portal

• Document management

Highlighted in an Oracle sponsored webinar (yes, that raised a few eyebrows) entitled “SharePoint: Truth and Fiction”, other survey findings include:

• Number one reason for deploying MOSS: its inexpensive

• 50% of participants found development of custom solutions required more effort than expected

• 70% use at the department level; only 38% use it at the enterprise level.

• Some to no leverage in compliance, e-discovery, external website, complex authoring, archival/preservation

• 78% of participant users rank MOSS file sharing as good to excellent

• #1 challenge to development: developer training and toolset (cited by 44% of participants)

Amongst the major recommendations conatined in the study's findings:

• Focus on collaboration (internal)

• Requires strategy, position, and planning

• Develop or acquire expertise

ANALYSIS: This survey is highly biased by MOSS users; 70% of organizations are not using SharePoint (research by Prescient Digital Media, Forrester and Gartner peg it at somewhere between the high 40 percentile and low 50 percentile).

However, the research (conducted by Carl Frappaolo, Information Architected) has some good intelligence and findings. Many organizations are in fact not using MOSS at the enterprise level – a very telling finding. But while MOSS is an inexpensive solution for a small organization, it is in fact quite the opposite for a large organization looking at enterprise licenses – a scenario which can be outrageously expensive and even considerably more than the Cadillac of portals, IBM's WebSphere Portal.

LEARN MORE:

If you're in Europe I strongly suggest you attend my session SharePoint (MOSS 2007)-Pros and Cons on March 4 at the IntraTeam Event (conference) in Copenhagen. Readers of IntranetBlog.com also get a discount of 15%. Just use price code: "Prescient15" when you reserve on the IntraTeam website.

Reserve now for IntraTeam 2009 in Copenhagen.

In North America, be sure to attend the free webinar Planning for SharePoint Success, presented by myself and Prescient Digital Media on April 13th, 2009.

Reserve today for Planning for SharePoint Success.

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How can you operate a successful business or system if there is no clear owner? You cannot; it is simply impossible to achieve any long-lasting success without a clearly defined ownership and management structure. Far from being a buzz word or consultant jargon, intranet governance provides clarity and rules: namely the names, roles and responsibilities of its owners, managers, stakeholders and contributors (be it content, technology or other).

Imagine a platoon without a lieutenant, your HR department with no head, or your public website without an owner. All might might survive for a few weeks, maybe a year or two, perhaps, but all would die a slow death until someone put it out of its misery.

Politics and the issues of control, ownership and standards go hand-in-hand with intranet management and perhaps these issues more than any other have driven the requirement for defining governance models. Sadly, very few organizations actually have a well-defined governance model, and many of those have spent hundreds-of-thousands to millions of dollars on their intranet – amounting to extraordinary investments left to chance and execution on a whim.

According to the Intranet 2.0 Global Survey only 47% of organizations have a defined governance model (of which 32% have 6,000 employees or more; 11% have 30,000 employees or more). Of the tools and platforms being used by survey participants, a whopping 47% are using SharePoint (MOSS 2007) in some shape or form.

However, SharePoint is not getting the governance it deserves. According to the Global Intranet Trends 2009 report, which highlights detailed intranet findings and lessons from 227 participant organizations, 55% of organizations have implemented or are considering implementing SharePoint; a pitiful 30% of those SharePoint implementers have an intranet strategy. A stunning finding; I would be amazed to learn how the intranet managers or executives in these companies actually got their jobs.

However, if ever there was a platform or tool that required governance, it's SharePoint. “Without proper architecture and governance, I can guarantee you that SharePoint will fail,” says Bob Mixon, President of Mixon Consulting, addressing the annual Enterprise 3 conference in San Diego.

One MOSS expert, who prefers to remain anonymous when citing this particular client, tells of a major bank in the U.K. that upgraded to MOSS in 2007. A little more than a year later the bank had 23,000 instances of MOSS – a a massive problem for the bank. “The way it was deployed and structured was deplorable… but that’s the bank’s fault, not Microsoft’s.”

As I'm fond to continually reiterate, an intranet is one part process, one part people, and one part technology – and the technology is the least important component. An intranet cannot work on software and hardware alone. More specifically, Microsoft provides the software, it is the client's responsibility to build the plan and intranet governance.

When building an intranet a governance model for MOSS, or any other intranet, the major components should include:

• Defined ownership structure (names and titles)

• Roles and responsibilities (jobs and duties)

• Decision making process (who is responsible for what and when)

• Content and development policies & standards (the rules of establishing pages, sites and content)

Implementing proper governance for MOSS (or any intranet) does require some experience and an outside third-party expert or intranet consultant is strongly recommended if there is any hint of internal politics or competing priorities amongst intranet stakeholders. An outside intranet consultant is considered mandatory if HR, Communications, IT and all the key departments and business units are not in explicit agreement as to who should own the intranet and what the model should look like.

SharePoint may be the World's most popular intranet platform that is loaded with bells and whistles, but without the proper planning and governance, a MOSS intranet project could become your organization's most expensive productivity drain.

RELATED READING:

Intranet governance

The Politics of Intranet Ownership

Collaborative Intranet Governance (Intranet Politics Part II)

Intranet management is plural

Why is the intranet so political?

RELATED READING ON MOSS 2007 (SharePoint):

Advice for SharePoint customers

Sharepoint to be the new Windows?

The pros and cons of SharePoint (MOSS)

SharePoint overview (pros & cons, MOSS)

SharePoint requires proper architecture & governance

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For all the heroics of pilot Chesley Sullenberger and the happy ending for all the survivors of the ill-fated US Airways flight that splashed-down in the Hudson, the parent corporation directing that flight does not earn a similar fate. Though US Airways did not completely fail the crisis, they did fail at web crisis communications.

Within moments of the plane landing in the Hudson, ferries began to redirect their sterns to the partially submerged wing tips of the big jet airliner; the only quicker response was the one by users of Twitter. The tweets were ringing through the Twitter website and PDAs across the planet faster than CNN could break the story. A simple lesson, really: the Web has become the ultimate quick response system in times of crisis. Though this lesson has been re-learned many times (the bombings on Mumbai are just one of countless examples), US Airways still had not learned the lesson.

Amongst the flurry of tweets were those from myself, who working from the greatest of distances, my building in Vancouver, was able to communicate more about the story than the airline itself. And while the Internet continues to prove itself amongst the fastest of communications channels, US Airways still did not have a response or a message on their website two hours after their accident. I was watching – and the company posted no message on their home page, and none to their press room.

Read my full column US Airways fails web crisis communications

According to Jane McConnell's annual Global Intranet Trends 2009 report, c-level executives now participate on the intranet steering committees of half of the respondent companies that have a steering committee (about 1/3 of the respondent companies have a steering committee; roughly 1/6th of the total respondents therefore have a senior executive actively involved). While it is true that most of the remaining organizations don't have a senior executive actively engaged, this finding represents a marked increase over 2007. In 2007, only one-third of the intranet steering committees have the privilege of a c-level executive on the intranet steering committee.

While there is hope that more executives will come to realize  -- or be convinced -- of the intranet's value to an organization, there is still pause for concern. The study finds that only 14% of the respondent intranets consider the intranet as "business critical." This is unfortunate because in many instances the intranet is business critical; others may not have the chance to become business critical because senior management aren't convinced they should invest in the intranet or a redesign.

The truth of the matter is that an intranet manger or consultant's number one job is sales – selling the value of the intranet. Most c-level executives don't have a clue what the intranet can do for the organization, and they sure as hell don't use it themselves. Consider the findings from last year's Global Intranet Trends Report finds:

• 40% of respondents say the lack of senior management ownership (stewardship or championing) of the intranet is a serious obstacle

• 44% of respondents say the intranet is not seen as a priority and is a “serious obstacle”

In nearly half the organizations, senior management is a “serious obstacle.” However, the blame is not always the fault of senior management, who often don't understand the intranet because they have bigger concerns. To wit: “Even when the intranet strategy is documented, which is the case in over 60% of respondents the precentages drop rapidly regarding senior managemetn signoffs,” states the report. 

Most organizations, even the above average organizations that participate in the annual intranet study, don't have a documented strategy! No wonder your senior management doesn't support the intranet! Executives can be excused for not supporting the intranet in those organizations where the intranet doesn't have a stragegy or even a simple business case in the form of a needs-benefits analysis. In those cases, senior management is not the obstacle, its the intranet team!! 

Not surprising then that the Global Intranet Trends study has uncovered that 80% of “stage 3” intranets (the most advanced, valued intranets on Jane's 3-point scale) do have a strategy. The link between intranet value and strategy is becoming clear. Having said that, a strategy unto itself is not a strategy; the best intranets have strategies and senior management support. “When documented strategies and steering groups do exist, they often do not have sufficient involvement from business related people nor decision-makers in out-lying parts of their organizations,” concludes Jane. “This is part of the reason that senior managers are not always sufficiently aware of the intranet.”

The single-edged sword is not enough: a great intranet requires both a strategy and senior management support. Without senior management support, you need to find or buy a sales hat. Learn to sell the intranet – or hire an outside intranet consultant who can (see How to hire an intranet consultant). Putting on your sales hat, requires:

• Case studies - showcase to executives what a winning intranet looks like

• Active commitment – use case studies and needs analsysis to secure an executive champion (or 2)

• Business case – work with your executive champion to determine the requirements for an effective business case

• Sales presentation – with all of the above, hit the road and sell every executive that will listen

• Proposal – now you're ready to send your proposal to funding committee or executive that will ultimately determine your budget

Unfortunately the executive suite and senior management have proven that most companies care little for the intranet, and still in fact view it as a cost center. Unless intranet managers can find their sales hats then little will change the minds of executives who, by and large, will limit the investment in the intranet or enterprise portal.

The above findings and insight from this year's Global Intranet Trends 2009 report are just a fraction of a percentage of the insight and findings you need to know. Do yourself a favor and order the Global Intranet Trends 2009 report – it's worth it.

To read more about combating complacent executives read Building sustainable leadership support.

Additionally, you can see both Jane and I present our insights and findings from our respective studies (mine being the big study on Intranet 2.0) at this year's IntraTeam Event on March 3-5, 2009 in Copenhagen. This will be the top intranet event in Europe this year. Readers of IntranetBlog.com also get a discount of 15%. Just use price code: "Prescient15" when you reserve on the IntraTeam website.

ADDITIONAL READING:

Intranet business case

Leading an intranet redesign

Finding Intranet ROI

Read more how intranet experts Prescient Digital Media approach intranet redesigns:

The Intranet Plan Intranet Blueprint © 2008
The Intranet Portal Blueprint © 2008
Intranet Evaluation
Value and Return on Investment
CMS Blueprint © 2008

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