SharePoint Planning: A Labyrinth of Choices

Copyright © 2014 Earley & Associates, Inc. All Rights Reservedwww.earley.com | 781-444-0287

SharePoint Planning:A Labyrinth of Choices V3

Presented by: David J Pileggi Jr.

[email protected]

http://www.earley.com/

2Copyright © 2014 Earley & Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. | www.earley.com | 781-444-0287

Introduction



The Real Introduction

• Computer Science degree from University of Central Florida• Professionally working in the IT industry for 12 years• Working specifically with SharePoint for last 9 years• Taught several SharePoint 101 classes• Designed SharePoint solutions for more than 30 Companies Ranging from

Regional to Global• Member of Boston SharePoint Users Group• Avid Alpha/Beta tester SharePoint and otherwise



Setting Expectations

• Why vs. How• Clarity

Hardest Level 100 you will attend… EVER! Why your early choices can steer your outcome awry

• Direction I hope to direct you safely away from common pitfalls Give an appreciation for the choices made to build your SharePoint environment

and what they could define later on

• Confidence Stories to give confidence Understanding the decisions you make to be able to take you on the solution

you have targeted



Foreword

Welcome to the choose your own adventure, “The Case of the SharePoint Deployment.” This story is filled with interesting twists and turns. The greatest thing is you will be able have your own adventure. Don’t read the book like a typical book. At the base of each page you will have a choice to make. That choice will tell you which page to turn to continue your adventured. Have fun and remember there is no right or wrong way. Or is there?

Goals of this Presentation• Try to walk through many of the

main decisions a company may come across

• Talk about as many good practices as possible

• When we choose the wrong path, we will talk about why the choice led to that point

• Make this both informative as well as enjoyable (Lets face it getting a lot of information without entertainment value can be trying)



Find the Why

Your company hears about this SharePoint “Thing.” It sounds like a good idea. You and a bunch of co-workers are standing around the water cooler talking about it.“Hey Sarcastic Sally, how is the paper your working on.”“As good as an ulcer,” Sally retorted.

“Did you hear about that program called SharePoint?”“Stop smiling, the light shinning off your teeth is going to blind me. Yeah, it sounds cool.”“Maybe we should look at the business problems it could solve before we move forward with it?” you ask yourself out loud.Sarcastic Sally scoffs. “It’s a cool application, let’s just move forward. You are such a worry wart.”

Go to page 21 if you agree with SallyGo to page 37 if you want to follow your own idea



The Problems of No Why

Your SharePoint environment is installed and takes a life of its own, causing chaos and mayhem everywhere in your company. You are blamed for the IT nightmare and sent to a small town in Idaho to flip burgers.

THE END



SharePoint Champion? Needed or Hot air?

You shoot back, “No, I think it will be a good idea to figure out the business problems we want to solve for the company.” “Like what?” asks Jeff from accounting. Sally and you watch him drain half the water cooler bottle of its contents into his water bottle. “Well, Sally already gave us one. She is having trouble collaborating with her team. The paper they are working on isn’t as easy as it should be. So collaboration is a big one I would think.” “Oh, sorry to hear that Sally, but we have our own problems,” Jeff informed us. “How so?” Sally inquired.

“Well, we have all of these reports we are forced to do, but they are so time consuming, I don’t have time to do what I am supposed to do.” Jeff wrinkled his nose. “The enterprise version of SharePoint has Excel Services and BI capabilities,” I offered. “That could be another business problem we could solve initially.” “Do you have an executive sponsor?” Jeff wondered. “We are IT, why would we need that?” Sarcastic Sally snapped. “To get funding and support.” Jeff said defending himself.

Go to Page 13 if you want to get an executive sponsor.Go to Page 25 if you agree with Sally



Oh no you didn’t!

Oh no, SharePoint has been considered a rogue project. Lack of funding has landed us in trouble. We are forced to use an old Commodore 64 and two TRS 80’s to try and build the environment. The project and idea has died before it could even go forward. A walk to the water cooler for you and Sally is now known as the Walk of Shame.

THE END



Governance… Don’t leave home without it

“I guess I have to agree with you Jeff, but where are we going to find an executive sponsor? That is going to take forever.” You wince at the thought of trying to approach the “High C’s.” “Jackie, my boss will probably jump at the chance. She is the CFO and knows how painful the reports are. Being in control of the money, I am sure she will find a way to fund the project as well. Especially if you throw in pretty charts and graphs.” Jeff laughed. Apparently he doesn’t understand body language, because both Sally and mine would have told him Jackie was right behind him. “I heard that!” she exclaimed. Jeff jumped almost spilling his water bottle. Fortunately Jackie was grinning. “He is right though, I live on

charts and graphs. I will be happy to sponsor this project as long as our needs are on the top of the list. When can you get the application installed? The sooner or the better.” “Well, we should probably put together a governance document to keep this thing in control,” Sally suggested. “That is going to take a while isn’t it?” Jackie pouted a bit.

Go to Page 27 if you decide to keep Jackie happy and install right awayGo to Page 5 if you decide Sally is right

Squeak!



No Governance = No Good

Your SharePoint environment is up and running for several months. Best practices were not hit for the install, but trying to keep Jackie happy you pushed forward. Once released to the end users the application known as SharePoint became a scary beast of untold proportions that could not be controlled. Welcome to the IT nightmare.

THE END



Which way do I go? Which way do I go?

A dream team is put together with Sally and yourself as a part. A month of careful planning and work on the governance document. You and Sally are commissioned with researching the install routine by creating a test environment.

Sally is getting impatient and suggest to do the Stand Alone Install. There are two other potentials. What do you want to do?

Go to page 17 for the CloudGo to page 33 for Host in House



Virtual vs. Physical: News at 11

You leave Sally to regain your senses. As you walk down the hall, you run into Eddie who was known as ‘Crazy’ Eddie from the infrastructure team. He greets you in as if he’s talking through his nasal passage.

“Your going to build this SharePoint environment completely virtual right? Going virtual is the way to go. Woot!”

To slowly back away and go physical Go to page 3To use a hybrid model go to page 23To go “totally’ virtual go to page 55



What Install Path to Choose

A dream team is put together with Sally and yourself as a part. A month of careful planning and work on the governance document. You and Sally are commissioned with researching the install routine by creating a test environment.

Sally is getting impatient and suggest to do the Stand Alone Install. There are two other potentials. What do you want to do?

Go to page 17 for Stand Alone InstallGo to page 33 for Full Install



Stand Alone… Really?

You have chosen a very limited installation. You will only have 2GB of space to contend with in the environment, but you figure by the time the company needs to upgrade the environment to be able to expand on the space SharePoint’s value will be known.You have become a underground hero for the ability to flip the switch on a wizard. Giver yourself an atta-boy.

THE END



Bite Sizes is Good

Sally walks in exasperated. “These people are going to drive me to go professional in lawn darts!”

“What’s wrong?” you ask.

“They want everything happen at the release. That’s a week away and they keep adding new functionality they find on the internet!”

Go with the phased approach Go to page 29

Do everything to make everyone happy page 37



The Next Level

You have finished the first phase of your SharePoint deployment. End users are foaming at the mouth to get onto your farm and play. Solutions released are being celebrated and used. Rumors of your success has gone outside the walls of your corporation. You receive an email from Acme Anvils down town. They want you to work for them!

Continue to work here Go to page 57

Work for Acme Anvils Go to 73



Welcome to the Pain

You are greeted at the door on you first day working at Acme Anvil by the CIO. You find it a little odd until he starts speaking. “We are happy you joined our team! Our SharePoint person left 2 weeks ago and SharePoint has been down for the last business week!”You suddenly get that nasty bile feeling in the back of your throat.

Battle stations! Go to page 81

Run to Canada… go to page 43



After the Fact

You realize you have just stepped into a huge mess. You just came to at your desk. Apparently you fainted just walking in the front door. Apparently this happened a lot to the previous SharePoint admin because the security guard at the front desk carried smelling salts on him at all times. Never a good sign.

You weigh your options. You can try to just keep the environment up and running, keep it from crashing, and sustain the status quo or take the initiative to fix the problems. This bull is a lot bigger than the company you dealt with. Where do you even begin?

Try to just keep your head above water Go to page 51

Take the bull by the horns Go to page 57



Migration is Good

You are approached by multiple people in the cafeteria. Despite the fact the SharePoint environment had been down, they are all clamoring they want to upgrade to SharePoint 2010. The same people that were complaining from the time you walked in the door until you brought SharePoint back on-line.

Approach the governance board about a upgrade/migration Go to page 33

Continue to try and work with the current version Go to page 67



Folksonomy vs. Taxonomy

You didn’t realize the level of tempers that would be raised during the meeting you were holding to try and gather facts for the SharePoint environment. Folksonomy! Taxonomy! Tastes Great! Less Filling! Really people? This could get ugly.

Go with Taxonomy Go to page 91Choose Folksonomy go to page 55Be a Rainmaker by going Hybrid Go to page 107



Is there a Librarian in the house?

Ok, the battle of Folksonomy and taxonomy has finished, but now there is a void with the solution your company has chosen to work with. A gate keeper who understands words and grouping of those words. Not to mention Search needs a watcher too. Both could fall in the same job, but a librarian? How do you move forward?

Request for a resource requisition Go to page 95Try to take it on yourself to maintain Go to page 31



Information Architecture? Taxonomy?

Finding things in the current environment… yeah right! When you first came to this company, you casually browsed SharePoint, or at least tried. There was no direction, no rhyme or reason for links, navigation or sites. What a disaster. Your eye is still twitching. The governance committee is going to breathe a sigh of relief when this is all done.

Bring a solution to the governance committee Go to page 71Leave the mess alone Go to page 93



Security! Walk this stuff out, please!

Things are coming together nicely, but one thing you need to do is try and stop the wild west mentality of the company. The security is looser than a hippy convention in the middle of an unused pasture. Everyone has admin rights to everything. Oh yeah, that has got to go, but to what level? Back to the governance committee.

Wild West Rules! Go to page 75Introduce the Sheriff Go to page 81



Space! The Final Frontier… It’s Cheap?

The databases you inherited are behemoth! No quota’s in the wild west does not work. When you ask some of the infrastructure team if they were concerned, their answer was, “No! Space is cheap now!” Not a great answer to be sure, not to mention a DR nightmare if as you recall when walking into a downed environment.

Enforce quotas on the new farm Go to page 19

Try to use Site Pruning Go to page 23



Not in my house!

You have begun an exciting journey, the governance document you helped put together has given you direction. You have begun to put together a solid farm. There is a lot more ahead of you, yet your confidence is steadfast. Time to turn to configurations.

To use all the out of box configurations Go to page 19

To customize your configurations go to page 23



Calling all cars!

Things have been going very well, now is the time to release the new and improved SharePoint environment to the company. One thing is needed though. Communication! Time to call on your champion and corporate communications tag team. You sit back and breathe a sigh of relief. Its been a long road, but you survived!

The End



Q&A



What we do – Help organizations make information more findable, valuable and usable through taxonomy, metadata, information architecture

Earley & Associates Overview



Events and Communities

• Taxonomy CoP – http://bit.ly/Taxonomy-CoP• IA Experts - http://bit.ly/IA-Experts

Linked In

• SharePoint IA Group: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SharePointIACoP/

• Taxonomy Group: http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/TaxoCoP

• Search Group: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SearchCoP

Yahoo


http://bit.ly/Taxonomy-CoP

http://bit.ly/IA-Experts

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SharePointIACoP/

http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/TaxoCoP

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SearchCoP


Upcoming E&A Webinars

Topic Date

Lost and Found Through Trial and Error - Search Lessons Learned

09/24/14 1:00 to 2:00pm ET

Six Critical Success Factors for Managing Your SharePoint ECM Program

09/25/141:00 to 2:00pm ET

Check out our website for registration:http://www.earley.com/training-webinars


34Copyright © 2014 Earley & Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

34

Contact:David J Pileggi Jr.

Senior Consultant

[email protected]

• Customer Service Systems• Product Information Management• Knowledge Management Portals

• Master Product Taxonomy• Omnichannel Information Integration• Digital Asset Management

Enterprise Taxonomyand InformationArchitecture for:

@DavidPileggi

Thank you !

SharePoint Planning: A Labyrinth of Choices

Technology

Transcript of SharePoint Planning: A Labyrinth of Choices