As organizations we work with have matured in both implementations and long term planning around SharePoint, a more common discussion surfacing has been the need for Portal Steering Committees. If companies have done an effective job implementing SharePoint and have separated the content publishing tasks to the lines of business (Corporate Communications, Marketing, HR, etc.), then creating a Portal Steering Committee can have substantial value. As is the case with most SharePoint conversations, I hate attaching the word Portal to this discussion since SharePoint 2007 clearly extends the boundaries of the traditional portal definition. The core workloads that compose the SharePoint platform (Portals, Collaboration, Search, ECM, Forms/Workflow, and BI) validate the need to create a committee definition specific to SharePoint beyond the tradition committee structure.

First, let's look at the potential role of a Portal Steering Committee and then we can talk about structure. Ideally, the PSC should be tasked with:

1. Aligning portal initiatives to overall corporate business goals.
2. Provide administrative and functional guidance to the portal management team.
3. Approve project scope and monitor and continually assess the portal project viability.
4. Resolve corporate conflict/issues.
5. Determine corporate standards.
6. Provide approval to proceed through each phase of the project.
7. These next items may or may not fall within scope depending on the depth the steering committee wishes to control:
   1. Defining all governance, standards and policies.
   2. Creating content publishing policies and assigning departmental ownership.
   3. Driving portal branding/look and feel (some companies may assign partial or full ownership to marketing).
   4. Navigational design/taxonomy.

Having an effective Portal Steering Committee structure is absolutely critical in driving the success of the committee.

1. The committee should have an executive sponsor not from IT.
2. The committee should meet regularly with defined success criteria and measurable goals. The criteria can certainly vary based on implementation specifics:
   1. Employee Self-Service - how many requests are being handled in SharePoint versus requests directly to HR?
   2. Call Center Knowledge Management – are more calls closed on the first call? Do we see fewer escalations?
   3. Simply measuring traffic to the intranet is not an effective way to define success for a portal environment.
3. Conduct surveys around usability and design – reward employees for providing feedback.
4. The committee should revisit its structure, responsibilities, and membership annually to ensure maximum effectiveness as well as potential scope changes due to changes in business conditions and perhaps technological capabilities in the portal.