10 Steps to Successfully Implement SharePoint

Every complex and large-scale business project such as SharePoint deployment or implementation is not something that an enterprise can handle on its own; because it requires special expertise and vast technical knowledge. Apart from getting professional SharePoint services from an expert SharePoint service company like Code Creators Inc., it is equally important to devise a step-by-step SharePoint implementation guide to guarantee the successful deployment of your projects. So, without any further ado, let’s jump straight into the steps.

Steps to Successfully Complete SharePoint Implementation Guide

1. Get Managerial Support

Implementing specialized solutions like SharePoint is designed to amplify overall organizational productivity. And, its successful implementation depends significantly on the right adoption of all the concerned parties involved i.e. user teams that will be using the solution in future. So, it is always better to not take any risk and prepare executives and management beforehand and get their support, to avoid any discrepancy. This will not only improve user adoption but also help meeting desired objectives.

2. Clearly Define Your Goals & Objectives

Getting your business organization, the bliss of SharePoint is amazing, but it is also important that you actually achieve for what you have invested in the solution. For instance, Reducing Ownership Cost, Streamlining Data Management Processes, Defining & Improving Standards, etc. no matter what your goals are, what’s important is that they are defined and explained clearly. Otherwise, there will always be a discrepancy in measuring the success of the project or the accomplishment of your objectives. Hence, it is always a great idea to set up and implement a comprehensive, well-though SharePoint Governance Plan in place. The plan should include the purposes for what SharePoint will be implemented within the organization, how it will be used? Who will be using it? And what are the expected results projected from its implementation? Trust us, once you have each of these things written and sorted, the implementation would look much easier to you.

3. Hire Professionals & Skilled Team Members

So it’s time to give HR a call!

You must have heard the word ‘A-Team’, and obviously, they are not called B, D, or F teams for certain good reason. And, that is, simply because they are crème de la crème in everything that they do. But, doing so would require you to get all your start employees to do the job. The corporate world these days is all about specialization, so when you are deploying SharePoint, you must consider the fact that hiring an expert SharePoint developer won’t do the job alone. The entire implementation process would also require the specialized expertise of Business Process Analysts, Project Managers, Architects, Administrators, etc. So, when you are planning to implement SharePoint in your organization, take care of making a call to your HR first.

4. Set Up a Training Strategy

So identify who will fit what profile and train them accordingly.

Another important step with a very significant impact on user adoption is ‘Employee Training’. Training core IT employees for efficient usage of SharePoint is a part of preparing a technical team. But, what about other employees within the company, who will be using the solution. So, providing a complete usage training course to everyone will do the needful. By doing so, you will dig out their creativity and also waive off any risk that your employee will soon be saying good bye to the solution for any reason. Also, by providing the training, you will be having Power Users, Knowledge and Information Users, and Administrator employees. So, it is advised to make a call to your HR when you decide to implement HR in your company.

5. Set-Up Service Operations

To make sure that your SharePoint implementation are successful, productive and rewarding, you need to keep all the processes running uninterruptedly. SharePoint Service Operation requires to be multi-faceted. It involves planning for self-adaptation of SharePoint solution (permission model, templates, etc.) knowing service offering model for your organization, creating and documenting monitoring standard and rules for SharePoint environment etc. Defining and writing all these turn out to be very useful at various instances and provide you with a clear picture of how your SharePoint solutions will be delivering your project objectives and business goals.

6. Define & Regulate Your Information Design

We have already mentioned that you will be needing an architect in your SharePoint implementation team. So, now it is their time to rise and shine. Remember that information architecture is the actual foundation for your SharePoint solution, hence it must be well-established, well-thought and comprehensive. This starts by conducting an in-depth analysis that covers the entire structure of your project. This is just like building a blueprint before constructing any house or building.

7. Define Policies & Standards

SharePoint is just like a treasure box with countless possibilities, but it is not a playground at all. There are a defined set of rules and standards that must be understood and practiced well to make the most out of the platform. There are ground rules for everything that how it will work related to SharePoint. Policies and standards are the foundation stone of SharePoint Governance planning; hence you must never take it lightly.

8. Follow Best Practices For SharePoint Implementation

Just like any other technology or IT project, SharePoint also sees every single new finished bit pass through multiple stages before getting into production. Once the concept intent of idea is generated, it is then developed and all the possible bugs are fixed within the development environment. It, then enter into the Quality Assurance Phase within a dedicated environment (which is kept as similar as possible to the production environment). All these SharePoint implementation phases are there for multiple good reasons, so we would advise you not to rush and follow them step-by-step with patience.

9. Encourage Adoption Culture

Above all, the success of your project is all about the extent of user adoption. To make sure that the implementation of your SharePoint is well-received and adopted by your users, you are required to communicate all the possible benefits that the solution will be going to offer them. Promoting the platform’s collaborative aspect, providing them training and communicating them the benefits are the approaches that will go a very long way. Also, never forget to listen to your users’ concerns and feedback. Because continuous improvement is the ultimate key to success for everything.

10. Keep Everything as Simple As Possible

This is one of the point that you need to keep in mind throughout the entire project. We all have heard often that ‘Less is More’ or ‘Simpler is Better. In the case of SharePoint, you must follow your goal and vision in mind and offer your users a clear and simpler picture of what they will be getting from using the solution. It is very important that you make the onboarding process simpler and easier for the users while making the value (that they will be getting from the project) very much visible to them.

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