This session is a case study of Earley & Associates, an information management consulting firm, which was looking to improve access and reusability of its extensive content libraries. With the directive from the top to ‘eat our own cooking’ the E&A consulting team turns its focus inward to build a best in class content management system. This system would support the company’s desire to leverage the knowledge and experience of its team members in order to maximize its effectiveness in every department from sales and marketing through delivery. In this session, you get an insider perspective on the good, bad, and the ugly as the company worked through the process – from taking inventory to rebuilding the taxonomy. David talks about the choices that needed to be made and why, the things that worked, and the things that could have been better.

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SPS Boston
Case Study: Earley
Migration to O365
10/1/2015
Presented by
Pileggi, David
Senior Consultant
Earley Information Science
Twitter: @DavidPileggi

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Introduction

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The Real Introduction
• Computer Science degree from University of Central Florida
• Professionally working in the IT industry for 12 years
• Working specifically with SharePoint for last 10 years
• Taught several SharePoint 101 classes
• Designed SharePoint solutions for more than 30 companies
ranging from regional to global
• Member of the Boston SharePoint User’s Group
• Avid alpha/beta tester SharePoint and otherwise

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Agenda
• Setting Expectations
• The Earley story: Why we chose O365
• The use cases: User-centric design
• The tough decisions
• What we did well
• The rest of the journey
• Your Q&A

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Setting Expectations
• University classroom setting
• The story is still unfolding
• What are you looking for?
• Why is this relevant?

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The Earley Story
Why We Chose O365

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Compelling Reasons to Migrate
IT Support
Server Maintenance
Patching
Disaster Recovery
Extranet
Simple solution for
external invitations
Highly secure
Access to:
Delve
Video
Skype for Business
Digital
Workplace
Improved
Collaboration
Distributed Users
Device Mobility

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The Story
• SP2010 was 2nd
implementation after
MOSS
• Use cases: Project
sites, methodologies,
templates, archive
SharePoint
2010
• Single site collection
• Role-based security
• More metadata &
classification
SharePoint
2013 On-prem
• Goal: Showcase
• Rich solution for
intranet/extranet
• Support marketing,
sales, delivery and
executive mgt.
processes
O365
SharePoint

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Designing the Right SharePoint Solution

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Key Approach: User-centered Design
• Previous SharePoint implementations had become less
relevant to our users over time
– SharePoint was a document repository but not “business-critical”
– Users perceived it took “extra effort” to put things in SharePoint
– Loads of content uploaded, not all of it relevant (bigger haystack)
– Hard drives still served as the “personal repository” for some
• WIIFM:
– Give the users more of what they want and need
• Collaboration on work processes
• Make compliance easier and automatic
– Less is more: Get out of my way
• Let me do more without an Admin (e.g. add a Customer to the list)
• Just the facts: Ask for only key metadata
• This time: Focus on users, core business processes

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The IT Environment
Rich & varied SaaS infrastructure for business operations:
– O365: Collaboration and content management
– GoToMeeting: Virtual meetings and webinars
– Salesforce.com: CRM, sales management, customer
development, business development
– Hubspot: Marketing automation, email, webinar, website
– Drupal: Public website, blogs
– Other SaaS platforms (finance, HR, etc.)

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observe summarize conceive develop
identify
audiences
define
tasks
build use
cases
identify
content
organize
User-Centric Approach (top-down)
Requirements Processes
content audit taxonomy metadata
content
models
mental models
site maps &
navigation
wireframes
Earley Information Science Methodology:
Content-Centric Approach (bottom-up)

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Core Use Case: Sales Operations
Sales Requirements:
• Collaborative proposal
development between delivery
SMEs, sales and management
• “System of Record” for
documents, with salesforce.com
for business process
management and CRM
• Contracts, proposals & SOWs
published for finance, legal,
delivery and management teams
Key Features:
• Proposal Center was designed
and tested by the sales team

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Core Use Case: Marketing Team
Marketing Requirements:
• Collaborative marketing content
development between SMEs and
the marketing team
• Manage all branding elements –
templates, design guidelines,
messaging
• Share reference collateral with
delivery, sales for on-going
outreach and client engagement
Key Features:
• Digital workspace for campaign
development, project/task mgt.
and a structured document library

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Core Use Case: Delivery Consultants
Delivery Needs:
• Project sites were already in use
for SOWs, contracts, key
contacts, artifacts, working
documents, deliverables
• Improved findability to avoid
reinventing the wheel
• Share reference collateral with
delivery, sales for on-going
outreach and engagement
Key Features:
• Updated project sites with
improved IA for findability

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The Tough Decisions

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Approach
• Not just a simple
migration of the old site
• Create new value for our
teams
• Practice what we preach
• Focus on user-centered
design and core IA
• Make it a showcase for
our teams and our clients

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Timing
• Sense of Urgency:
We need it to run our
business
• SharePoint migration
should finish “yesterday”
• Skype for Business
Whenever
• New ideas NOW
• Yammer… Who?

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Lessons Learned: Cost & Time
• Can take twice as long when
doing it in-house with limited
resources
– people have “day jobs” with
higher priority (e.g. being
billable, closing deals)
• More than one individual
– business SMEs during design
– consensus on taxonomy & IA
• Budget time & overhead
budget for an internal team
– It’s a project

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Cutting Corners
• Don’t do it!
• Kills progress
• Costs more money

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Planning
• It’s a pebble… It’s a rock… It’s a mountain!
• Sure I can do that… oh wait… billable

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What We Did Well

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Taxonomy
• Our wheel house
• Oh by the way –
Public facing web site
• Getting it right the
first time

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Security
• Security centric solution
• Intranet
• Extranet

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Governance
• Project sites creation
• Adding to the Taxonomy
• Taxonomy is iterative
– Seeing it on paper vs.
working with it daily

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Migration
• Selected ShareGate
• Understand
strengths/weaknesses
Choose
Migration tool
• Mapped from the
ground up
• Treated each site as
a mini-project
Re-Organize
• Content owners remap
• Migrate to new
locations
Migration

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The Rest of the Journey

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Search Community

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Questions and Answers

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Thank you!
For more information …
Please bring your business card after the Q&A
– I’ll email you the latest version of these slides
– I’ll invite you to our SharePoint webinars
– I’ll answer any questions that I didn’t answer just now

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EIS – Digital Workplace works
with market-leading organizations
to overcome content chaos.
Ensure your enterprise digital workplace considers
how people, systems, content and context intersect
to transform operational performance.
Realize your digital experience vision.
Earley Information Science
(EIS)
A trusted information integrator
Founded – 1994
Headquarters – Boston, MA
www.earley.com
David J Pileggi Jr
Senior Consultant
774-364-2815
David J Pileggi Jr.