I have been a SharePoint consultant and trainer for nearly 6 years now. In my experience, an often overlooked problem regarding SharePoint deployments, is the bad attitude towards the whole project from key employees or even groups of key employees, this can be really harmfull and it should be adressed.
First there is the IT people. i have experienced IT guys with a really really bad attitude towards the SharePoint deployment. Very often they had very fixed ideas of rights and wrongs within their field of work. They would typically be Mac or Linux evangelists forced into a SharePoint project by decisionmaking above their level. I fully recognize their worries about propriatory software and usability and so on. But having an bad attitude, as i see it, only makes their own everyday worse, and with the decision already taken, It really only makes one difference in a negative, unproductive fashion by 3 factors at least.
They will have an negative impact on their direct IT collegues working miljeu!
The end users perception and readiness to get involved in the SharePoint implementation!
And lastly, maybe even their companys overall productivity because moving to another knowledge file and sharing system like SharePoint is a big and important move that requires the whole company to pull towards the end goal, a successfull new intranet solution.
I may be forgiving toward other emplyees having a bad attitude, but with this group i find it very hard. Ofcourse they feel some responsibility for the best selection of software and solutions, but when the decision is made, they have to deliver, because they moved from being nay sayers to bad attitude. The solution............ hmmm
Another common scenario is the lack of dedication from parts of the executives or heads of offices in the company. Typically you could hear from the head of sales, that SharePoint isent of his concern, it is an IT problem, "Fix it! We got customers to visit and contracts to sign. The affect of this could be a slow migration of the sales departments content into SharePoint as he will not accept time and ressources being allocated for the migration.
This is of obvious reasons not very productive, and it emphasizes the importance of having the CEO's full commitment and acceptance, that willingness to participate is required from ALL head of departments within the company, no exceptions made.
They are somewhat excused, as their primary business goals definately isent that of facilitating a new intranet. In other words, they have to be educated. A little trick here, if you own a Enterprise license, can be a quick and dirty presentation of Business Intelligence with PerformancePoint, Your Sales Executive will go from "Never Ever!" to "Please tomorrow" in 15 minutes. Another good approach could be making a SharePoint Migration group that will travel the departments, helping them with the migration.
Then there usually is a part of the end users who really dont think that "the new system" requires their attention and some may even insist that they will continue to work as usual. That means that they will insist on saving their files to a fileshare or even continue using and older system thet is to be outphased. When i in a training room meet this employee that has to move to a new system for the 6th time in their carreer looking tired, looking for their pension in 5 years, i do feel a bit of symphathy.
Their unwillingness to adopt SharePoint (or any other new system) is to be dealt with by the organization by facilitating services that would make them want to user the new system. That could be a good planning of Content Types and Workflows that will make their everyday easier by delivering Office templates and support for the business processes in their daily work situations. Educating them and having a strategy for education. Also a clear strategy for getting rid of the old systems is needed. As an example, fileshares. Setup and communicate a date from which content must be migrated into SharePoint, and then make the original fileshare read only.
Lastly, Dont forget the importance of SharePoint evangelism in your company. You can assign someone the role of being an SharePoint evangelist or SharePoint business consultant if you like. Make them produce instructional videos to be published in the intranet, make demonstrations at meetings and so on
They will ofcourse have to be given very important, give them responsibility in the SharePoint project that amkes them feel ownership and commitment. But also dont forget, that the "yes sayer" culture has its limits, it is very often the "no sayers" that points out things that needs to be improved, (I hate the yes sayer paradigm in some companies) You have to facilitate appropiate and constructive channels they can use to express their concerns, wich could be our new infrastructure. and that is to be exactly SharePoint!
Dont fight the Nay Sayers, Fight the Bad Attitude!
Best
Morten Reintoft / Reiners
