Blogs

One of the things you can count on at a SharePoint event is a bit of IT-Bashing. Last week, it spilled over onto the Web when our very own John Mancini said in his blog:

“Many organizations will see SharePointas the answer to content chaos. However, with IT in control, content chaos will often be replicated inside of SharePoint.”

The quote struck a nerve with me partly because of the word “Chaos”. Last year, Microsoft wanted me to change the title of my presentation at AIIM Expo, which was to have been: “Order Amid Chaos” – they felt I was implying that chaos was possible in SharePoint - there’s a thought. Now, I find that the chaos that does appear in SharePoint is my (IT) fault. I’m not sure what attribute of us IT folks John is alluding to but I have heard people complain about the two listed below:

We Are Control Freaks – I constantly hear and read complaints by people who can’t seem to get their favorite solution past Cerberus and across the river Styx in order to install it in the hive. Yes, we are control freaks but let me tell you why: when your freeware solution de jour stops working with the next upgrade, we are the people you will expect to solve the problem. We know that SP20xx is going to be replaced by SP20x(x+~3) and we know every solution won’t make the turn. I recently looked for a way to handle substrings in SharePoint Designer. I found two SharePoint Designer extensions that would do the trick. The problem was, one was for SP2007 and doesn’t appear to have been upgraded for 2010 and one seems like it never quite worked right to begin with. Not only would I not install these, I used them as an example with my Systems Admin of stuff he shouldn’t install – even if I ask him to!

We Are Geeks – “IT is owned by geeks who don’t understand real world solutions” Yes we are geeks, but we are also the people who dig into SP to find the cool features. In my experience, it is the average user  who would be perfectly happy to move file folders into SharePoint folders. It is also my experience that some people say “IT doesn’t understand the real world” when they really mean “IT doesn’t understand how important my world is.” SharePoint needs to be an enterprise solution if the enterprise is going to see a return on its investment. The geeks in IT make their living understanding enterprise requirements and technology.

In fairness to John, I have learned almost everything I know about ECM from AIIM, AIIM Education and the AIIM NE Chapter. I am sure there are recalcitrant IT folks out there, just as I am sure there are consultants who make their living dragging the same solution from company to company in search of a problem. SharePoint shouldn’t become a battlefield within your organization. We keep talking about the need to consider requirements before designing a SharePoint solution, but a lot of people seem to forget that wanting a well-behaved and sustainable product is also a valid requirement. Bring the IT folks on-board early in your SharePoint planning process. Enlist their help with the tasks that they are particularly good at. Prove to them that you understand their concerns and see if you can’t negotiate with them for a hand on those controls. SharePoint may be forcing you to encounter IT for the first time in your career, but successful IT folks have been working with users forever.