Heads up on SharePoint Services - A Great Online Collaborative Tool

Per the title of this post, probably something many of you already know, but here's my story.

I currently work for two not-for-profits as a compliance specialist. With all the regulations surrounding grants and contracts, social services people have a boatload of information to keep track of. So we started off by tackling reporting - and I modeled a report tickler system in Outlook that went a long way toward gathering all the information we needed in one place and helping us meet our compliance goal of getting reports in timely. However, I remained convinced that a truly collaborative online work environment was what we needed.

By October 2007, I had been given charge and custody of a product called SharePoint Portal Server by my boss and the IT director. As I looked it over, I recognized the potential SharePoint Services held for giving our agency an intranet and a truly collaborative workspace for report writing, grant writing, and other endeavors. Best of all it was intuitively accessible through our web browser. But first it took a thoughtful observation from a co-worker to get the ball rolling.

One day a co-worker made a thoughtful comment about something I'd already started to realize and try to simplify during the formative evaluation stage of the Outlook Tickler System, namely that receiving all those information-laden tickler emails could feel overwhelming - particularly during a heavy reporting cycle - which for us came quarterly, semi-annually, and annually. During those times, we could have as many as 22 reports going out to funders in the space of a single month and involve 25 to 30 staff members from the different programs in the process. Since over half the reports had a financial component as well, business office staff might find themselves responsible for getting out 15 reports in a month's time after running monthly financials. With a tickler email going out for each stage of our compliance strategy, the business office person could receive potentially receive 60 emails in a month's time. At that rate, even with everything embedded in one email or Calendar entry for a particular report, it was still difficult to get a handle on what was due when, and where to find it.

"I know," I responded. Then, "But at this point I don't know how to fix it."

"I know you don't," she replied patiently - as if, "Who would?"

We left it at that, but that brief exchange started the wheels turning in the back of my head.

... I wonder if there's a way ...

As I've already stated, around that time, the IT Director came to me with a manual and a CD on SharePoint Services. As I looked it over, it dawned on me. Instead of a tickler email for each report, there would be a tickler email for each person - and the email would simply contain the due dates and a link to a worksite for each report. The link would be accessible through the person's web browser. There would still be a tickler email for each stage, but an individual would receive only four tickler emails at the most during a month's time. The report worksite would contain all the resources previously embedded in the tickler emails and calendar entries. . . report instructions, contact information, report formats, report procedures, previous period reports, and funder reporting schedules. Best of all, the worksite would be interactive. No more passing documents back and forth via email. We could all literally be ON THE SAME PAGE. There would still be a calendar but it would be primarily for me, to remind me to get the ball rolling. The calendar content would be much reduced, containing for the most part just the link to the worksite.

On the eve of one of our busy reporting cycles, I spent an intense week learning SharePoint and constructing worksites - which delayed send-off of the Stage One ticklers about a week. Generally, I prefer a piloting or phased implementation plan as opposed to quitting "Cold Turkey." But in this case I went with a gut feeling. While the Outlook-based tickler system had helped us achieve our goal of timely reporting, most of my report writers were still resorting to email as a main resource for finding and relaying what they needed- simply because using Outlook's public folder didn't seem to be catching on. So, relying on their knowledge of the web, I emailed each person a brief (and enthusiastic) STAGE ONE tickler email. It contained a list of their reports due with the links to the worksites, the compliance strategy due dates, and who currently "had the ball." I invited people to try out the links and to contact me with any questions. To make a long story short, the SharePoint Services worksites have been very favorably received to date. While SharePoint interactive worksites do have a singular look and feel, the fact that people were already quite used to finding information and interacting through their web browsers (as witnessed by the success of ebay, and blog sites) worked greatly in our favor.

From the Report Tickler System it has been but a hop, skip, and a jump for us to create worksites for other purposes as well and voila. Another intranet is born ... We still have a lot to learn about it - myself and the organization as a whole. Recently I was asked to do a presentation on SharePoint to get middle managers started thinking about the potential. Here's the link to the presentation and the notes. This is also available from my linked-in public profile and at slideshare.

Sterile Design Environments vs. Fertile Design Environments

When you've been at something as long as I have, and witnessed first hand the desktop revolution growing up from the first dos machine to the internet and world-wide web, you arrive at the point where you feel you can form some opinions about design. I have worked in the computing field in one way or another for twenty-five years, mostly designing solutions from the tools at hand.

I have worked in computer shops and it departments. Those were my sterile design environments. That's probably a misnomer. They were rich in access to technology, often the newest technology. They were rich in access to creative and capable colleagues in the IT field. But they were sterile in the sense that they were not intimately "wedded to" or "situated in" the areas they served. In a sense their knowledge and skills lived in a vacuum.

Then I have actually worked in jobs where I had to design tools for myself and for a whole group of people to solve a problem we were all grappling with. That kind of job is fertile in that your computer knowledge does not sit in a vacuum with nothing to do and you have inner access to the people and problems that you design solutions for. In fact part of the art of design is engaging users to design solutions along with you.

While the knowledge and skills from the first environment are essential, I think that designing in the second environment produces better products.

It makes sense in the light of modern learning theory which espouses "situated" learning and constructivism.

I have two degrees (well, three actually, but two technology and design related) - an associates degree in computer programming technology and a masters degree in educational technology. I think the two complement each other well. Both teach systems design. However, as I often say, educational technology fills in some gaps in systems design theory, especially when you are designing tools to scaffold people's cognition. And today, with the information boom, and the cognitive overload that inevitably results, those type of tools are more needed than ever. In fact, I think and predict that providing tools that help people effectively manage and use the amount of information that is available to us today and that is required today will be one of the greatest and growing requirements and fields of this new information age - right behind, if not alongside, the computer security field.

Traditionally systems or design theory teaches (sort of) that if you build it they will come. Modern learning theory and constructivism says instead, if they build it, they will use it. This is more than just change management and 'buy-in". Knowledge is socially constructed and negotiated - if something is to be used, it must go through some process of social knowledge construction. If something is designed in isolation, people won't even know it exists and they certainly won't use it. And we've all heard the horror stories about systems "passed down from on high."

Not that these were bad systems. They just neglected to go through an important part of the process.

Tools that scaffold cognition must provide an evironment and the tools for the user to construct and negotiate knowledge. Too often we want to say "out with the old and in with the new," in one fell swoop. This is a mistake.

Windows SharePoint Services provides the environment and tools to help employees manage information overload both in a "top down" and "bottom up" sort of way. Kudos to Microsoft - hey you guys do it right once in a while! ;)

More on this topic later.

JuneBug