Three years into working for a legal regulatory body in Alberta that shall remain nameless, (too obvious?) I was sent to an ARMA (Association of Records Managers & Administrators) conference. ARMA sets the standard. ARMA is the standard. Anybody who’s anybody in the Records Management space can be counted upon to be present at these conferences. If this sounds intimidating, it isn’t - the Records Management industry is not what one would call expansive. Everyone kind of knows each other. One of my co-workers had been to such a number of these events that my other co-workers joked I could get a t-shirt made that said “I KNOW __________” and I would instantly have two hundred friends.
I was under strict orders from my boss at the time to “network,” a fate I feared not less than being painfully eaten to death by eight alligators. But I needn’t have worried. Approvingly, I noted several hopelessly nerdy introverts pull out their knitting and settle in for the keynote speech. Cat sweaters abounded. Nobody tried to talk to me. I was delighted. Finally, at long last, I had found my people.
About halfway through the keynote speech, the speaker – and to this day, I have no idea of if she was trying to be intentionally funny or not – stopped mid-sentence, surveyed the room, and announced dramatically, “Now, I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings but I feel like you guys need to know this.” Sensation in the audience. She paused for theatrical effect, and said, “Sometimes, your co-workers in other departments might hide when they see you coming, because Records Management people are seen as making things more difficult than they need to be.”
Dear Diary, the guffaw of laughter that escaped me was neither safe nor hygienic.
But let’s back up a bit.
Have you ever tried to introduce Sharepoint to a large group of office workers, some of them lawyers, who are used to operating in a 100% paper-driven environment? And who feel about their paper the way some people might feel about their spouses on their wedding day? (i.e, eternally devoted.)
The overall response was “positive” (lol) but there was more than a few co-workers who developed a Neo-like ability to dodge our Sharepoint-related meeting invitations. A few….exchanges…were had. This happens in every organization, because of human nature, and then the phrase “change management” gets thrown around a lot. Next thing you know, you receive compulsory invitations to several “Lunch & Learns!” (Although my Dad says he thought these should be called Educate and Masticate, a suggestion I feel HR would have frowned upon.)
BUT ANYWAY. Is Sharepoint worth all this fuss? What’s she bringing to the table, anyway?
The first thing you should know is that using Sharepoint to manage your information is like being married to a magical witch. If you roll up to the house, grumpy and angry, and DEMAND to know where your dinner is when she’s been home with the kids all day, that interaction is more than likely to end with her hexing you. Later, you might make an irate facebook post about how “Marriage is just like, REALLY, SUPER HARD, you GUYS, so DON’T DO IT.”
But if you roll up to the house with a special plant she requires to mix her elixirs and potions, I can guarantee you that you are going to be one happy married person. Later, when she performs a spell to rid you of your aching back pain, you’ll say, “Wow, I didn’t know you could do that!”
Now, I know that this analogy might not hold up to super intense scrutiny, but here’s a hint : the special plant is metadata.
The bottom line is this. You can get amazing results, but you have to know what she can do, and you have to know what she’s going to respond to. But, in short, yes – she’s worth it. She’s worth the trouble. She can do all kinds of cool tricks, and she can and will make our lives so much easier.
However, at this point, you might be still feeling a little like Boromir in the Fellowship of the Ring.
But don't worry. I got you. Here are my Do’s & Don’ts if you’re thinking of transferring your organization to Sharepoint.
DO’S
· Do collaborate with IT. They need to be involved and they need to be respected. IT wears the pants in every professional relationship because they hold the keys to the internet, so always be super extra nice to them. Bring them snacks and give them high fives.
· Do be transparent and encouraging! Then everyone else will trust you and want to be your friend, even if you have a reputation for having "such an INTERESTING sense of humor!"
· Do decide on your metadata allowables beforehand. (I will do another blog post exploring this concept further). Get everyone’s input. Treat your metadata allowables with the same reverence and devotion that my older brother shows to avoiding therapy.
· Do hire a Sharepoint expert or consultant. Is it expensive? Probably. Is it necessary? Definitely.
· Do make sure executive leadership is engaged, present, and committed, or people will placate you but then keep on doing the same thing they’ve always done.
· Do bribe people with snacks.
· Do offer training, training, and training – this makes people feel comfortable and safe.
· Do listen to peoples complaints, but don’t let them steer the ship.
· Do put controls in place to make sure that people are using Sharepoint the way you want them to use it – otherwise the whole project will have been a pointless exercise.
· Do check back in every six months – if, six months from implementation, people are able to find their documents instantaneously or within 3-5 minutes – amazing. There is a God after all and She loves us. If it takes 10 minutes or longer, there is something wrong and we need to course correct. If the search function isn’t working for people, that also means there’s something wrong, most likely that someone hasn’t been filling in the metadata properly.
DON’TS
· Do not withhold information from the rest of the organization about implementation and/or roll-out. This makes everyone feel suspicious and mistrusting, and is just all-around a bad vibe.
· Do not think to yourself, “I can do this on my own without hiring a consultant of any kind” (UNLESS you already have an IM professional AND a Sharepoint expert on staff).
· Do not ignore training and think “People are smart, they’ll figure it out!"
· Do not treat the metadata as unimportant or superfluous.
· Do not be too sassy.
· Do not ignore peoples complaints or concerns.
· Do not be uncollaborative with other departments.
· Do not be over-collaborative – too many cooks spoils the stew.
· Do not ignore or laugh nervously at passive aggressive comments – instead ask, “That’s interesting – what makes you feel that way?”
· Do not take up too much of peoples’ time. Everyone is busy, and people will appreciate you being short-winded and efficient.
· Do not hesitate to remind people what’s in it for them – Sharepoint helps us work smarter, not harder, and that’s why we love her and invite her to all our parties.
Okay, that's all from me for now! Sound off in the comments - how has your Sharepoint journey been?
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