Creating Great Client Experiences with SharePoint 2010 for Web Content Management

Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College

Creating Great Client Experienceswith SharePoint 2010for Web Content Management

Fostering Cross-Team Knowledge Sharing

Rebecca DorninWeb Technologist, HBS ITG

Mary FowkesSenior Project Manager, HBS ITG

Anne E. HoldenHBS EE Web Marketing Manager

June 23, 2011

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Agenda

• What is SharePoint?

• Deep dive on the project with Executive Education

• Program Management

• Training and Outreach

• Collaboration

• From the Customer’s Perspective

• Lessons Learned

• Q & A

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What is Microsoft SharePoint?An out of the box web publishing and collaboration platform

• Common uses include intranet sites, extranet sites, document management, and internet sites such as HBS Executive Education (EE)

• Industry leading collaboration portal in the enterprise space

• Offers page-editing, file-storing and custom design ('branding') capabilities

• A SharePoint site is a collection of pages, lists, and libraries configured for the purpose of achieving an express goal

Key goals and benefits of WCM

• Great user experience

• Establish and promote web standards – common header, footer, navigation, global CSS

• Establish reusable templates that support HBS look and feel

• Content reuse within and across sites (news, feeds, faculty interests)

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

• Establish shared content types and metadata taxonomies

• Site personalization

• Platform flexibility and scalability

• Content versioning and workflows

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Decision to Implement a Web Content Management (WCM) System

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Why SharePoint?

A Focus on Web Content Management

• Access to a large community user base

• SharePoint dynamic pages with content that is editable by MS Office like ribbon controls

• Lists and Libraries of many types

• Announcement Lists, Blogs, Contacts, Discussion Boards, Document Libraries,

Pages, Surveys Tasks

• Ability to copy, create, delete, or rename lists and libraries, pages, and sites

• Manage user permissions and view document/page version histories

• Evolve with industry. Take advantage of technical innovations (mobile, foreign language support, targeted content)

• Utilize consistent visual design framework across sites

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About the Exec Ed SharePoint 2010 ProjectUpgrading and Redesigning a Site on SharePoint

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What is the HBS Exec Ed Web Site?

www.exed.hbs.edu

• Marketing web site with thousands of pages of unique content

• Over a thousand video and article assets

that must be shared dynamically across

sub sites

• More than 80 programs, with dates, fees,

and application info

• Forward facing public site targeted at the world’s top executives

• Fortune 200 companies looking at this site

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Key Considerations of the Project

• Technical

• Software upgrade needed to support

new functionality

• New hardware needed to support

software upgrade

• Finding ways to improve EE’s

workflow

• Working with the system out of the

box capabilities

• Customer Engagement

• Ease the learning curve for the

customer with new technology

• Understanding how to map the

requirements of the customer to the

feature set of SP2010

• Content integrity

• Open communication channels

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Project Management

Identified success factors for HBS, ITG, and Executive Education

• Early decision was made to use a two pronged approach to achieve long term success

• Project 1–SharePoint 2010 with EE Site Upgrade

• Upgraded SharePoint WCM from 2007 to 2010

• Built robust infrastructure, all new hardware

(intDEV, STAGE, PROD, DR)

• Upgraded EXISTING Executive Education site

• Seized opportunity for training ITG and EE on SP2010

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Project Management

• Project 2-Executive Education Site Redesign

• Focus was exclusively on Executive Education’s

goals

• Training and knowledge transfer were deliverables

on project plan

• Agile project methodology

• Milestones were agreed to collaboratively

• Approach for solutions were signed off on prior to

coding

• Executive Education tested and approved

deliverables throughout project lifecycle

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Customer Engagement• Conducted three 8 hour on site training sessions for EE marketing

• Met bi-weekly in person to determine training needs and ways to improve workflow

• Based training off information gathered in meetings, tailored trainings to the

customer’s workflow

• Worked with SharePoint out of the box enabled rapid prototyping of workflow changes

• Created Transparency: Kept customer knowledgeable and heavily involved in the requirements gathering process

• Used Agile approach by listening and adapting to the customer as the project progressed, ability to adjust as needed

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SharePoint Out of the Box Functionality

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Executive Education Admin Tools

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Edit A Program

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Edit Sessions

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Document Library

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Pending Edits Screen

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FAQ List – Storing Questions and Answers

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Customer PerspectiveOwnership between both ITG and EE

• Inclusive Team Dynamic

• Willingness to let down defenses to build good chemistry

• Daily stand-ups and weekly meetings supported real-time communication

facilitated the smooth project flow

• Coding Best Practice Documentation

• Established standard of excellence for all developers on the team

• Provided the customer with a high-level of confidence for the deliverables

• Transparency

• Challenges elevated to the team-level, not left for discussion within only the

impacted group

• Alternative ideas for processes and resolutions solicited and discussed with merit

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Customer Perspective

The EE Marketing Approach

• Project Schedule

• Persistent close monitoring with a keen eye on dependencies

• Limited deliverables slippage and avoided surprises

• Shared Learning

• Reciprocal learning between departments: EE process and ITG application

knowledge

• Collaboration to identify training scenarios provided solid foundation to write

training documentation

• Local desk-top training sessions allowed comfort level to EE and process insight

for ITG

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Lessons Learned

• Regular communication both internally and externally created opportunities for agile decision making

• Upgrading to SP2010 prior to the site redesign gave customer a chance to ease into the new user interface enhancements

• A deep understanding of the customer’s needs allowed the team to use the SharePoint out of the box functionality to meet goals without the use of custom code

• Face to face meetings proved to be extremely effective, particularly when arriving at solutions

• Recognizing that when content and code are involved quality is always a key driver for success

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