The importance of a Business Analyst on SharePoint Projects

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The Importance of a BA on SharePoint Implementations

Michal Pisarek, Denise ChingNovember, 22, 2013

IIBA Vancouver Annual General Meeting

Introductions

Who we are

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Introduction: Michal Pisarek

Founder of Dynamic Owl ConsultingMicrosoft SharePoint MVPOrganizer of the Vancouver SharePoint Users GroupBlog: SharePointAnalyst HQ Contributing AuthorSpeaker at multiple SharePoint events

http://www.sharepointanalysthq.com/




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Introduction: Denise Ching

Co-Founder of Dynamic Owl ConsultingPMP and CBAP certifiedSharePoint Business Consultant, Business AnalystOccasional Blogger: SharePointAnalyst HQ (www.sharepointanalysthq.com)




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Dynamic Owl

SharePoint consulting servicesBusiness focused• Strategy & Roadmap• Governance• Change Management• Requirements Elicitation

What is SharePoint?

Slide TitleWhat can you do with SharePoint?




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Ask 10 people, get 10 different answers

“My Intranet”“The place where I go to find the content I can never find”“Where I manage my projects”“Where I fill in holiday request forms”

“Where I go to fill in my profile”“The home of my news”“My HR area”

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“A broad set of capabilities that allows you to build solutions for your business”Both a product AND a platform• Product: Capabilities that you

can easily use• Platform: Extensible, Robust,

Secure

Its whatever you want it to be which is both a blessing and a curse

So what is it?

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Focus on empowering end

users

Integration with Microsoft eco-

system

Broad range of capabilities

Great marketing job by Microsoft

Low cost of entry (in theory)

Product and Platform

What makes SharePoint unique?

Common Challenges

With SharePoint Implementations



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Huge range of capabilitiesUsers have alternativesIt can do anything

Common Challenges – It can do anything

Role of the SP Analyst: Prioritize Needs

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Driven by the IT department (technology first)End users, business, other stakeholders not consulted

To implement SharePoint successfully, it involves many parties• Exec support, Sponsors, Power users, Trainers, SharePoint

support team, Communications, etc.

Common Challenges – Involving the right people

Role of the SP Analyst: Involve the business

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"We have SharePoint but no one is using it"It's relatively easy to "implement". Features come out of the boxTreated as a Band-Aid solution for "collaboration" issues

Common Challenges – “Ease” of implementation

Role of the SP Analyst: Understanding Business Requirements

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We want everything!• “Too much too soon” is a magnet

for problems• The organization has to be ready

Common Challenges – Too much too soon

Role of the SP Analyst: Assess Organizational Readiness

Jumping to the “how” before the “what”• SharePoint should not be a “tool looking for a problem”• Lead requirements with all the features SharePoint has to offer

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Painting with the same brush• Gen Y thinks everyone wants “Web 2.0”• IT thinks everyone wants wikis• Records managers hates wikis and believes that *everything*

should be classified as a record• Marketing thinks that if it sparkles people will use it• Some people will always use folders

Common Challenges - Perspectives

Role of the SP Analyst: Understanding Stakeholder Needs & Perspectives

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Not accounting for “soft” factors• Organizational culture• Change Management (process, power structure, roles and

responsibilities etc.)• Learning styles of users• Personal motivators

Different for each organization, creates complexity

Common Challenges – Change is hard!

Role of the SP Analyst: Planning for and Communicating Change

The SharePoint Analyst

What is this?

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A Business Analyst (or Systems Analyst) that understands the capabilities and constraints of the SharePoint platformBusiness Analysis skills / core competencies are necessaryPlan BA activities around SharePoint

What is a SharePoint Analyst?

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Someone that leverages SharePoint capabilities• Out of the box functionality before custom development• Don't make SharePoint into something that it isn't (extremely

expensive and may not be exactly what you want)• Strike a balance between business needs and SharePoint

capabilities, offer alternatives› Out of the box functionality› 3rd Party tools › Customize as needed

What is a SharePoint Analyst?

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Business• SharePoint is first and foremost a

people problem• Users don’t want features, they want

solutions to their business challenges or opportunities

• Lots of social complexity involved

SharePoint• Ultimate double edge sword (easy to

get cut)• You need to guide users down the

right SharePoint path• In the end you are leveraging

SharePoint, you need to understand it

Why do you need both skills?

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Traditionally, people who are gathering requirements for SharePoint implementations:• IT (developers etc.)• Technology agnostic BAs• Functional departments

(Communications, Marketing etc.) • Anyone who wants to make a quick

buck “I know of SharePoint”

The Importance of a SharePoint Analyst

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A successful SharePoint implementation should be driven by the business• People, Processes and Information

Setting expectations and provide SharePoint education (what SharePoint is and what it isn't)Define and communicate what "value" SharePoint brings to the organization

The Importance of a SharePoint Analyst

People

Processes

Information

Start with a Vision

SharePoint is the means to an end



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Explaining SharePoint Strategy



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Slide TitleWhere does it all go wrong?



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Divergence – multiple future states



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Breaking it down

Vision“To attain and retain the best talent in the industry by providing an open workplace that

encourages sharing of ideas, collaboration and technical excellence”

Strategy“Pioneer the use of social technologies within the company to become a connected

organization that is always learning”

Business Needs

Find employees with skills and interests

that can help answer questions

Lower the cost of sharing information

across the organization

Encourage communities of practice for idea

exchanges

Codify corporate knowledge



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Breaking it down

Key Outcomes

Improve the time to find experts (using keywords) by 80%

Have 20% of all staff members on one or

more communities of practice

Increase usage of wikis across the

organization by 500%

Implement 2 knowledge base

topics by the end of the year

SharePoint Implementation Scope

User Profile Roll-out Innovation Center Template Creation

Community of Practice Pilot Wiki Pilot

Tools and Techniques

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Innovation Games (www.innovationgames.com)Gamestorming (www.gogamestorm.com) iPhone app - Gamestorming Card DeckDialogue mapping (Jeff Conklin)• www.cognexus.org

Techniques

http://www.innovationgames.com/

http://www.gogamestorm.com/

http://www.cognexus.org/

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Speedboat• Draw a boat with anchors attached

and name the boat (metaphor for product/service or goal)

• “What is standing in the way of progress toward this goal?”

Facilitation Technique

Why it works: Gather info about improvements and ambitions, reveal less than desirable conditions to move toward an improved state

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Cover Story• Ask players to imagine the best-

case scenario• Tell a story of their success as it

would appear on the cover of a magazine


Why it works: This is an open-ended, creative-thinking exercise. Commonalities reveal shared hopes and plants seeds for possibilities

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Flip-It• Ask players to write fears, concerns,

issues on sticky notes• Re-frame “flip” their fears into hopes• Vote on the hopes they can take

practical action on• Traction – brainstorm actionable

items for the most popular votes


Why it works: Fears reveal risks that may be slowing down the progress, “flipping it” to Hopes re-frames the fears and motivates action

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Activity Identification/Process Mapping• Representing their role on the

project, participants write down their activities and presents

• Group similar/like activities together• Identify inputs and deliverables


Why it works: Findings can be a basis for the SharePoint site structure, workflows, processes, roles/responsibilities and deliverables (as well as project scoping). It is often an eye-opener for team members.

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DO:• Prepare for these games in advance and communicate the intention

to the players (frame it well)• Invite the right people in the room• Get business/executive support (some of the findings can be

provocative)• Make sure you have enough time

DON’T:• Invite too many people – 6-8 stakeholder representatives• Use cheap sticky notes

Workshops – Do’s and Don’ts

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Dialogue Mapping• Tool: Compendium (free download)• Facilitation process that creates a dialogue

map that captures comments as a conversation unfolds

• It works with the non-linear way humans really think, communicate, make decisions

• Icons: Questions, Ideas, Pros and Cons

Tools

Why it works: Each participant’s contributions are shown on the map, see how comments relate to others, shifts the dynamic of the group into a collaborative mode, increases shared understanding

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Xmind (Mind Mapping tool)Balsamiq (Wireframing tool)Optimalsort (Card Sorting)Treejack (Tree Testing)SharePoint (Prototyping)SharePoint (Project Documentation, Task/Reqs Tracking)

Other Tools

Summing it up



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Summing it up

SharePoint can do anything. Understand the business.Needs are simple, implementing a technology that doesn't meet their needs introduces complexity and leads to poor adoptionSharePoint is the means to an endYou are the analyst. SharePoint just happens to be the domain.Leverage effective tools and techniques

Questions?

Documents

The importance of a Business Analyst on SharePoint Projects