Successful adoption of SharePoint for improved communication, project execution, and content management

While SharePoint is a broad and diverse platform, when many people think SharePoint they think collaboration. Team collaboration is one of the most popular and powerful uses for Microsoft SharePoint Server. Collaboration is such a core part of SharePoint that the majority of what most organizations need for fostering better communication and execution among teams can be found in the base WSS version of the product, which is included with Windows Server. In other words, any organization using Windows Server has in its possession a powerful team collaboration platform.

However, even when operating in this “sweet spot” of SharePoint, where an organization is able to heavily leverage out-of-the-box capabilities, it pays to think a few steps ahead. In this white paper, our Microsoft team presents the ten “best practices” for success in leveraging SharePoint for improved team collaboration in your organization.

The ten best practices are:

1. Adopt a mindset of managed empowerment
2. Involve as many people as you can
3. Develop a plan from clear business goals
4. Treat a SharePoint project like any software project
5. Be proactive with training and adjustment to change
6. Build bridges to existing tools and practices
7. Cultivate a power user in each group
8. Engage with IT and corporate communications
9. Create feedback loops for continuous improvement
10. Plan for growth

You may have noticed that these practices are not especially technical in nature. While certainly a successful SharePoint implementation requires attention to technical detail, and while there are additional technical “best practices” we could name, the fact is that successful adoption of SharePoint for team collaboration has a lot to do with people, process, and change. Working with an experienced partner on the technical parts of the equation, and paying close attention to the ten best practices introduced here, can pave the way for better communication, closer collaboration, and more organized and accessible information with SharePoint—and also for more sophisticated and advanced uses of SharePoint in the future.

This paper focuses as much as possible on the out-of-the-box capabilities of Windows SharePoint Services (WSS), whether in the 2007 or 2010 version. Unless otherwise noted, you should be able to assume that the advice and information contained here applies equally well to WSS 3 and above as well as Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 and SharePoint 2010.