Think of launch day as the beginning of a new phase. You’ve identified your top needs. You’ve engineered a solution in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 to address them. Your end users are excited about using SharePoint Server 2007.
Now what?
It’s time to start thinking about how you can use Office SharePoint Server 2007 to address your next biggest pain points. An effective deployment is not a straight line from start to finish. It’s a loop of continuous process improvements.
As your end users see what Office SharePoint Server 2007 can do, they will undoubtedly want to help to drive further improvements in the organization.
Survey
Once your end users are comfortable with Office SharePoint Server 2007, ask them how it’s going. Send a survey to your users, just as you did in the Get Ready phase. Keep the survey short. People are more likely to respond if they’re not overwhelmed.
Here are some key questions:
- What do you like about SharePoint Server?
- How much time has it saved you?
- What more can be done?
Question #3 will give you a new list of needs that can be the foundation of a new business case. Asking end users about how much their jobs have already improved makes the business case even more compelling.
If they can see that Office SharePoint Server 2007 has already cut the time needed for one process by a third, they will be much more likely to give you the green light for future improvements and implementing more advanced features.
Brown bag with Super Users
Surveys are valuable, but they can tell you only so much. Have a brown bag lunch with your Super Users. Because they were involved in planning and testing your Office SharePoint Server 2007 deployment, they have a vested interest in seeing it succeed. And because they work side-by-side with the general end users, they can see usage issues and opportunities for improvement that you may not be able to see.
It’s also important to keep your Super Users involved after the launch. By making them feel valuable, they will be more motivated to cultivate a healthy SharePoint Server community in their teams. And they’re ready to go to help you design and test the next phase.
Track support requests
While Office SharePoint Server 2007 is easy to use and offers a consistent user interface, it’s still a good idea to track support requests.
The success of your deployment is largely based on how well employees use it. If employees are running into the same roadblocks, it’s a good idea to identify and correct those issues.
Perhaps the fix involves only a minor system change, or maybe just a little extra training is in order. Maximizing usability ensures that you get the most value from your deployment.
Discussion boards and wikis
Discussion boards and wikis are built into SharePoint Server 2007. Use them to continue the conversation with your end users, and to provide a place for them to get their questions answered by super users.
Provide a wiki with the most frequently asked questions on the discussion boards, and include the link to this FAQ in your internal e-mail signature. To help mitigate support issues, you can provide links to the discussion board and to the FAQs in your support e-mail auto-response. It’s also a good idea to provide another resource in case your end users cannot get their questions answered through either of these methods.
See Building Community for some tips on encouraging discussion board conversations.
Acting on Feedback
Just as in the Get Ready phase, map the pain points to key business issues. Are employees not able to access valuable data? Is time wasted because certain business processes take too long?
Attempt to quantify the value of the improvement that Office SharePoint Server 2007 can offer in addressing these issues. Rank them by focusing on the biggest opportunities for improvement first.
Expand your business case by showing the success from this deployment. If your manager and the executive team can see how successful you were with this deployment, they will be more likely to invest in your next project.