2. Michael Sampson Improving the Performance of Distributed Teams Blog Reports and Articles Two books on SharePoint, “Seamless Teamwork” and “SharePoint Roadmap for Collaboration” Invited Conference Speaker Consultant, Analyst, Workshop Leader
3. Agenda “Why did you write Seamless Teamwork?” “What are the key messages in your book?” “How can Seamless Teamwork help our firm?” “What do we need to do next?”
4. 2 Why I Wrote Seamless Teamwork Gives business people a picture of how they could coherently use SharePoint in their work Talks about SharePoint in terms of business work, not technology features 1
5. 1 Why I Wrote Seamless Teamwork Gives business people a language for talking to IT about SharePoint and their work Addresses the questions and considerations that people will face in using SharePoint for work 2
6. Key Messages in Seamless Teamwork People and process matter (hugely) SharePoint has technical capability to help in lots of areas (if it’s used well) Align SharePoint features to team stages Eg, wiki for “emerging” content / consensus AND THEN documents for finalizing content
10. Dear Roger, You did great in yesterday’s meeting with Martin, Janet, Tommy, and Darren. This e-mail message is to confirm what was verbally discussed, that you are project lead on Project Delta. It is critical to the future of our company that you get this right, and we all have full confidence in you to do so. You wouldn’t have been tapped to do this otherwise. A couple of pointers: You will need to assemble a team of people from across the firm to be involved, and given the emphasis of Project Delta on international expansion, I don’t need to remind you to pull in some good people from our overseas offices. The implication, of course, is that you’ll be leading a virtual team — you won’t be able to work in person with all of the people on the team, but you’ll still need to ensure that all of the work that gets done is done effectively. Secondly, I think this is a great project for running through SharePoint. I have spoken to Gareth Chan in IT, and he will be setting up a new Project Delta site for you. Please make sure that you use SharePoint in the most effective way possible; it shouldn’t merely be a file repository. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to assist. Happy to run interference for you where and if necessary.
12. The Five Phases Project Life Cycle Understandingthe Options Creating a SharedVision Analyzingthe Options Making aDecision Concludingthe Project All projects have unique AND generic aspects Five Phases … a high-level generic process
13. SharePoint for Managing the Project Recruitingthe ProjectTeam Setting upthe Team’s Place in SharePoint Introducing the Team to SharePoint
14. Recruiting the Project Team Roger knows some people at Fourth Coffee “I wonder who would be the best for this team?” SharePoint My Site My Profile – public-facing profile My Home – personal-facing home site People Search My Site requires MOSS 2007
16. People Search – For Internal People Find someone you know Search by Department Search by Job Title Search based on Skills
17. People Search – For External People Ask people at your firm for referrals Look at their Web site Google their name Follow their blog Look who is speaking at conferences Advanced tip: Create a place in SharePoint for tracking external people (“dossier site”)
18. Pre-Conditions for My Site Success People have filled out their profile! Make your areas of expertise interesting, not generic Be exhaustive and list everything View your profile as your online resume Be professional Don’t be all business Keep your profile up-to-date Become a My Site champion!
19. Creating the Team’s Place The three constituencies in any project The project team The project sponsors and stakeholders Everyone else
20. Open access – everyone Restricted access #1 – project team Restricted access #2 – sponsors and stakeholders Everyone Else Project Team Project Sponsors and Stakeholders Visualise an Office Building
24. Template Standardisation(governance theme) Minimize the number of diverging designs Reduces cognitive load on users Forms habits about “our way of working” Encourages seamless use Create a small set of templates for projects Small projects, Medium and Large
25. “Team, Meet SharePoint” Upfront questions when starting a project: “Who are these other people that I’m working with?” “How are we going to work together?” “How will I know when other people want me to do something?”
26. Key Idea: Announcements to Coordinate Team Action Create an announcement to say what the team needs to do next Team members are alerted They individually decide how and when to respond Tasks? For “one person” delegations
37. When can we work together? Multi-location, multi-time zone team When can we expect others to be available? When can we expect others to be working?
39. How will we work together? Shared mental picture of working together Not in the same place Eg, Frequency of interaction Speed of response Dealing with disagreements
41. Sharing the Contextual Details Overcoming invisibility and inaudibility “What’s going on for Laura in Edinburgh?” The meetings she’s going to Her travel schedule for the week What she’s reading Is there a good reason why she isn’t responding to my email today? (perhaps it’s a public holiday)
43. Creating a Shared Vision Creating a SharedVision Understandingthe Options Analyzingthe Options Making aDecision Concludingthe Project
44. “What are we working towards?” Common thought—“produced in common” Three aspects of shared vision: SharedVision Delegated Vision Contextual Vision Personal Vision
45. “What are we working towards?” Delegated VisionWhat the sponsors want Contextual VisionWhat the stakeholders want Personal VisionWIIFM?
47. Contextual and Personal Vision How to comprehend the Contextual Vision How to document the Personal Vision
48. Personal Vision “Why is this project meaningful to me?” “What do I hope to get out of it?” In SharePoint: A personal place to note WIIFM Can see it whenever I visit the team’s site
51. Understanding the Options “What couldwe do?” Aim is to secure a range of options Prevents premature embrace of one option Strategy: Brainstorming Separates idea generation from idea evaluation Creates a time/space to have ideas and share them
56. Other Approaches Brainstorming: With OneNote 2007 (a shared notebook) Via a conference call Reviewing and consolidating the ideas
57. Making aDecision Concludingthe Project Analyzing the Options Analyzingthe Options Creating a SharedVision Understandingthe Options
58. Analyzing the Options “What could we realistically do?” Explore the better ideas and options Cull those that are too costly or risky … or where the timing is off Expand and analyze the good ideas Aim is to get to a short list of 2-3 ideas
59. Create a Custom List to Track the Ideas Use a SharePoint Custom List For team coordination Communicates ownership and status Custom lists: Huge range of flexibility to track things in a shared setting Better than Excel 2007 or Access 2007
60. Coauthoring a Document Option 1: Word 2007 Use a Content Type Standardises the Word template
61. Coauthoring a Document Option 2: SharePoint Wiki Create a page for each idea Follow a similar structure across ideas
62. Meetings When Apart Five general purposes for meetings: To transfer information … use other ways To discuss and decide … conference call To coordinate … use blog To socialise … use blog or instant messaging To get work done … use screen sharing Time zone coordination? See the wiki
63. Meetings When Apart: Technology Microsoft SharedView Free for up to 15 participants “Meet Now” only; can’t pre-schedule No conference call number Microsoft Live Meeting Monthly service fee Meet now and pre-scheduled Bundles a conference call number
64. When should we meet in person? Two general rules: There is a lot of intensive work to do over a short time period Lots of interactive conversation is required Good times, for example: At the start of the project (getting to know others) Key decisions have to be made 2-3 people have intensive co-work to do
65. Making a Decision Making aDecision Understandingthe Options Creating a SharedVision Concludingthe Project Analyzingthe Options
66. Making a Decision “What should we do?” Have to choose one option from the short-list Approach: Pre-work (read through the options) Evaluate the starting positions … how much agreement or disagreement is there?
69. Assessing Commonality in Decision Invite responses through an Announcement 1 2 3 4 Key messages to communicate: It’s not the final decision Design of the survey Reminder to read the documents Link to the survey page
71. Making a Decision: Method Options Conference Call High agreement Shorter session to deal with formalities Face-to-Face Meeting High disagreement 2-3 day session Location choice Whole team or subset only?
72. Draft the Recommendation The team has determined the best way forward Now need to document that Socialise the recommendation Seek feedback on the recommendation Revise the recommendation (as appropriate)
73. Other Tools and Capabilities SharePoint Workflow … to gather feedback on a document in a standard way No duplication of documents Clear signaling of work to do
74. Concluding the Project Concludingthe Project Understandingthe Options Creating a SharedVision Analyzingthe Options Making aDecision
75. Concluding the Project “We Did It!” Ending the formal work of the team Recognition and celebration Team debriefing Personal vision … “go for it”
77. Write a Blog Post about the Project Write a blog post about the project in your My Site blog The role you took The names of the other people The key outcomes Key lessons about effective teamwork
78. Tidying Up the Inner Team Site Publish final materials Into the document management system To the Intranet Delete the transitory material Get the Inner Team site archived Disconnect Outlook, Groove or Colligo from the site Update the Everyone Else site
80. Agenda “Why did you write Seamless Teamwork?” “What are the key messages in your book?” “How can Seamless Teamwork help our firm?” “What do we need to do next?”
81. How Seamless Teamwork Helps You Strengthens user adoption of SharePoint Shows business people what’s possible and useful Shortens your training activities for SharePoint Gives examples of using SharePoint capabilities Addresses common business user questions
82. Next Actions Develop your internal user adoption strategy Inhouse Seamless Teamwork workshop www.seamlessteamwork.com Order SharePoint Roadmap for Collaboration www.sharepointroadmap.com Inhouse SharePoint Roadmap workshop
83. Seamless Teamwork How business teams can make the best use of SharePoint for collaboration Published by Microsoft Press (2009) www.seamlessteamwork.com
84. SharePoint Roadmap for Collaboration Making SharePoint succeed at a business and human level Published by The Michael Sampson Company (2009) www.sharepointroadmap.com
85. The Michael Sampson Company Improving the performance of distributed teams michaelsampson.net michael@michaelsampson.net