1

UnderstandingSharePoint Roles

Wes Preston

2

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…).

3

Housekeeping

• Follow SharePoint Saturday Twin Cities on Twitter #SPSTC

• Stop by and thank our sponsors for making this event possible!

• Fill out evaluations on Guidebook.

4

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

5

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…)

6

Traditional ‘Buckets’

• The three most common roles, buckets, groups that are recognized by Microsoft and the community

• MSDN vs. TechNet• nbsp.com, etc.

• Starting to see some Business / Decision Maker targeting…

Users

IT Pros Developers

7

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

8

Some Roles…

• Executive ‘Champion’• Platform owner

(mgmt./team)• Project Manager• IT Pro• Partner IT groups/owners• Business Analyst• Developer• Designer• QA / QC• Platform team

9

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

10

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

11

Core Roles

12

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

13

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

14

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

15

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.

16

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

17

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…

18

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

19

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

20

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 far-reaching implications

21

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

22

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

23

Extended Roles

24

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

25

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…

26

‘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…

27

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

28

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…

29

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

30

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

31

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

32

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?

33

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

34

Other Notes

35

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…

36

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…)

37

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

38

Scenarios

39

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

40

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

41

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?

42

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…)

43

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• ?

44

Questions

45

Thank you!