Great collaboration. It means eliminating boundaries of time, place and technology so that people can work together effortlessly.
Today's business environment demands that people are able to communicate and share information effectively in any situation. That means eliminating the typical constraints of location and technology so employees can remain productive in or out of the office.
Microsoft SharePoint is an intelligent enterprise portal that provides a central place to access, manage, share and interact with relevant information, documents, applications and people. It enables faster, more informed decision making, more effective sharing across teams, and more streamlined business processes.
# Create a clear roadmap -- While your initial implementation may not have every single functionality and document you want, you still want to create a portal that has an intuitive structure that allows for future flexibility. A managed SharePoint site can be a very useful tool, but allowing all users to have control over content structure can be tricky. Maintaining a solid structure is an important success factor.
# Promote managerial direction/spearheading/adoption -- Come out of the gate with some sort of game plan establishing that this portal is THE virtual environment.
# Be flexible -- Gather input from stakeholders often and communicate with your team in whatever way works. Discussions and phone calls can be very important. Stay connected at a human level.
# Reward collaboration -- Simple acknowledgment goes a long way. You don't want to lose that personal touch with your team. Creating a sense of common purpose binds people together and inspires stakeholders to internalize collaborative efforts.
# Don't assume that your employees will take time to learn it/Do train employees -- You need to take the initiative to train your employees. When training employees, keep it non-technical. An IT person may not be the best person to head up administration.
# Recognize that it takes time to build relationships and cohesiveness -- Successful collaboration requires a high level of trust that members value the common purpose, commitment to assigned tasks, positive communication skills and have a mechanism for making decisions.
# Cultivate an atmosphere for healthy exchange of ideas and confrontation that is non-threatening and unemotional -- It is important to recognize that the process of collaboration and the efficacy of leaders will not only impact the outcome but will also influence participant satisfaction and willingness to collaborate in the future.
# Brand your portal -- Branding shows that the company is behind the solution. Employees will respect it more, use it more and contribute to it more. Especially during the launch of the portal, branding can significantly contribute to employee adoption.
Collaboration starts around a single document -- but really, it comes down to overall business intelligence. This is where clients and management lose their minds with excitement. Combining document management with extensive reports and charts are where they can truly realize the effect that the solution is having on the company. They can see people taking collaboration to an entirely different level.
By Paul West / Intranet Journal
