I hate SharePoint (and so do you) – Part 1

Earlier in the year I was very generously given some time off by my former employer (Xerox) to help a non-profit establish a content management strategy (amongst other tasks). At the time I worked as product manager for Xerox’ DocuShare ECM software so there was an obvious temptation to recommend that product to them as the solution to their million-document strong “storage problem.” In the end I made the ethical recommendation based on their overall capabilities and technology direction and we implemented a two-tier strategy that was both elegant and, some might say, “retro.” We decided to keep the vast majority of their content exactly where it was, residing on networked file servers that everyone knew how to access and use. We did overlay a new content structure (you could call it a taxonomy, even) that more clearly mapped to their organization.

I should note this was quite a large and well-structured non-profit, and they clearly understood that technology was a requirement if they were to continue to function while experiencing rapid growth and high turnover (150 employees, 8 facilities, $5MM + annual operating budget). Technology was also seen as the only effective solution for some of it’s more sticky problems in finance and HR where accountability was critical. They had a talented IT department in place and were well on their way down the path of completely revamping their network, applications and desktop systems when I showed up.



We implemented SharePoint for basic web content management, collaboration and information “push” – sharing corporate policies, forms, and news across the organization. SharePoint was a logical fit for the organization; they were standardizing on the Microsoft product stack and SharePoint was effectively “free” for them (we’ll get into that term a little more in another post…). SharePoint was relatively easy to deploy while providing the building blocks for the more complex solution they would need to implement in future years. Most of their employees were not very computer savvy, so SharePoint offered a simple alternative to the more heavy-duty web publishing and collaboration tools they already had (but were not really using).



So we set up the SharePoint server, created some custom web pages for the portal aspect of the product. Assigned roles and permissions. Applied the taxonomy. Wrote policies on how to use the various “modules.” Developed and delivered training. Defined team leaders from each department who would sit in on IT-led meetings once a month to track progress and address issues. Oliver and Julian (the IT guys) even made some cute YouTube-style videos and cartoon strips to remind people of what the policies were, and how to use the software.



Last week I bumped into Julian and got the “six months later” perspective.



You’ve probably already figured this is not a happy ever after story, so I’m not going to bore you with the details of what’s not working. Briefly, the “business as usual” file system is working and being used every day, while SharePoint is languishing, despite offering a richer toolset that they’ve all been trained on. The problem is not accessibility – the SharePoint server is healthy, and sleeps well at night. Frequently throughout the day too, because nobody is taxing them with a whole lot of activity. So what IS the problem?



The problem is the people. Damn people, why can’t they be like infrastructure!! Once the initial training was complete and things got “steady state” IT and the advocates moved on to other things, and the program managers and staff for the most part moved on to doing things in the most convenient and expedient manner for themselves. Which was not “as originally designed.” It is worth noting that there are no problems with doing things “old school” i.e. storing their files out on the revamped file servers. It’s a familiar and accessible process that everyone, even the neophyte, can master.



The whole conversation pissed me off – all those hours of wasted effort - but also made me think about us humans and our behaviors. Looking back I realize I was somewhat star-struck by the non-profit, and ascribed qualities to the employees that were unreasonable. Like, that they were supremely motivated and devoted in all areas of their work. From my IT-centric view-point, everyone would rally around the “better faster more” toolset, even if it involved changing the way they worked, because it was better for the company.



I also now recognize a certain naiveté in myself, or perhaps it was an unwillingness to recognize a hard fact about ECM software – most people don’t use it. Not “most people don’t use it to full effect” but rather “most people don’t use it, period.” The effort of learning the application, of changing work processes, and giving up the convenience of “File>Save” is simply not worth it to the average worker who’s already overwhelmed with just doing the job they were hired to do.



The appeal of Content Circles for me is the way in which the call for simplicity is being addressed. Distributed and virtual teams’ very real need to manage and share documents is balanced against their need for speed, security and ease. Our daily challenge is not to add more capabilities and features to the product, but rather to remain focused on these core needs of the target user. From that perspective everything else will fall into place.