Blogs

“Cinderella, dressed in yella

Went upstairs to present her charter

With multiple teams, had to add scope

How many requirements (for her SharePoint 2010 Records Governance Plan) were eventually wrote?

1, 2, 3…”

Develop, configure, test, document. Develop, configure, test, document. Develop, configure, test, document--by the end of the year I’m going to meet myself coming and going (“time to make the doughnuts—I made the doughnuts!”).  It feels a bit like jumping rope while running a sprint. 

But this is the good stuff! Microsoft freely admits that SharePoint 2010 is a purely information governance tool.  Poring over Sybex’s MCTS: Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Configuration Study Guide and Microsoft’s SharePoint 2010 Administrator’s Companion, as well as Jamison, Hanley, and Cardarelli’s Essential SharePoint 2010: Overview, Governance, and Planning, I’ve gathered my requirements.

Configuring from Central Administration, my requirements list is pages long. I’m furiously learning PowerShell, too, which is what we in the business call Wicked Awesome.

There’s an…intoxicating…element of negotiation when putting together a project plan with multiple teams in end user roles—it’s a great deal of fun. To see folks eyes light up at the thought of implementing a development environment within an inch of its life…the rigor of it appeals.  I don’t know whether this is a microcosmic example of a macro approach to SharePoint 2010, but there’s a sense of getting it right this time around.

I’ll share this with you: don’t depend on the TechNet pages only for inspiration in a project plan. You need to read the books for additional guidance—fortunately, they’re highly illustrative.

Consider yourself warned: one of the weaknesses in putting together a project plan is the lack of hard data around exactly HOW long it takes to create a development environment. Buyer beware. If your company has decided to put SharePoint 2010 on SQL 2005 servers, for example, you’ll have to include some compatibility patches, too. Some helpful programmers have YouTube videos out there—check ‘em out.

Plan to spend the next year determining current folder structures, MOSS 2007 folder structures, migrating to SharePoint 2010 capabilities, mapping out metadata and folksonomies—this is DELICIOUS stuff. Exhilarating, fantastic, exhausting—that fine balance between what your end users need and want versus what SharePoint 2010 can do (“it gets by with a little help from its friends”, but that’s a post for another time!).

Forget December and the holidays: the start of new projects is “The Most Wonderful Time of The Year”. Got your jumprope?