It is fascinating how many
SharePoint™ clients adopting SharePoint fail to consider employing a dedicated
SharePoint-literate Project Manager in a timely and appropriate manner. Given
the fact that the Salem™ series of SharePoint™ strategy articles advocates a
professional programmatic approach to a highly-involved platform, it is
therefore natural that we turn our attention to the subject of the SharePoint
project manager, or more specifically, the lack of one.
I cannot count the number of
clients who, in engaging with SharePoint have failed to see the need for a
project manager with any skills in the platform which underlines the common
problem that client organisations see SharePoint as just another software
platform that can be controlled and managed through to service delivery by
anyone who can create a timeline, write a risk report and issue log, yet with
no appreciation of what they are about to encounter nor embrace.
Let us therefore consider, in a
pragmatic way, ten random but poignant reasons why every client without
question should consider the requirement for a client-side, appropriately
experienced and trained SharePoint Project Manager.
Here we go then:
1. Delivering SharePoint is a full time, skilled job
1. Delivering SharePoint is a full time, skilled job
SharePoint™ requires a portfolio
of skills that may not be found with a traditional project manager. I have
worked in many environments where the traditional PM sits 8 hours a day staring
at a risk log and Gantt chart and communicates with the stakeholders mostly by
phone and email. With SharePoint the PM is actually performing a wide range of
roles simultaneously, frequently at the coal face, performing everything from
presenting the benefits of the platform itself, to presenting and leading
stakeholder meetings, to acting as pseudo business liaison officer, to working
with the service delivery partner all the way through to training
administrators and other personnel.
There are so many strands to
successful SharePoint service delivery on the client-side that employing
someone who is unable to plan and anticipate what SharePoint will require to
occur is a highly risky business prone to failure.
By employing someone who already
knows that these tasks will be, how they work best, how to engage both the
business and technology and anticipate risk, the better time will be used and
the more likely you will be to progress.
For clients, ignore this advice and investment at your peril.
Delivery of SharePoint services
requires liaison between a wide range of personnel both within the client and
with suppliers, contractors and service delivery partners. Think of it like
spinning 50 plates at once and these plates start spinning very quickly with
the PM standing at the centre. Keeping everyone inter-connected and
communicated with regarding what needs to happen and when only comes with
experience in the SharePoint field, therefore platform literacy is needed to
ensure that everyone is asked the right questions and provides the right
questions at exactly the right time. A generalist PM will probably not know
which questions will need to be asked, why, when and what the follow-on actions
will be.
Central liaison on a SharePoint
project requires immediate understanding of what is happening and why and is
something that, if learned as one proceeds, will slow the entire project down
and start to increase costs and timeline impact. One cannot underestimate the
amount of liaison required with business stakeholders and how it can stretch both available time and resources.
Inevitably and so frequently
wrongly a business service will be deployed using SharePoint without any
thought or consideration to any further service that ends up using the same
platform. Consequently design and service decisions are sadly made in
isolation, driven by stakeholders who have a somewhat understandable myopic
view of things and aren’t typically interested in other projects but primarily
their own.
Whilst many clients are notorious
for avoiding ‘program manager’ roles in favour of the rather more mysterious
(i.e. non-existent) and somewhat cheaper ‘Senior SharePoint Manager’ role, many
SharePoint Project Managers are indeed fulfilling the vastly more complex role
of the SharePoint Program Manager. That is in itself a good reason for
selecting a SharePoint-literate project manager.
What the SharePoint Project
Manager does is knowledgably anticipate business decisions and advise
accordingly to ensure that some decisions do not occur in isolation when they
will clearly affect parallel and subsequent projects using the same platform.
It is the anticipation of the inter-connectedness of SharePoint services that is
critical and something that the SharePoint PM suitably provides.
Whilst you may rightly argue that
design decisions should be led by solution architects, the architect sessions
are frequently usurped by ad hoc and sporadic decisions by business and IT
stakeholders when the partner architect is not present, therefore it is down
to the client-side project manager to fill the gap, temporarily.
Whether it be content types or
site collections or content databases or web parts there is an intrinsic
language to the scripture of SharePoint that is not learned and understood
overnight. Working with a partner organisation any client will be expected to
understand the language and therefore the SharePoint Project Manager acts as the
skilled translator or interpreter who can translate what may be complex
technical queries into suitable business language appropriate to the audience
in hand. The SharePoint Project Manager can speed up the entire process by
working with the business stakeholders separately and educate and prepare them
with the language until everyone is speaking the same language. Failure to
address this role will present friction amongst a number of parties caused back
failure of communication.
Further to the above, the
SharePoint partner, if there is one, will be asking very specific questions of
the Project Manager which the PM will be expected to understand and action. The
more a partner has to spend time supporting the client project manager the
slower things will progress and the more likely there will be friction, issues
and mistakes if the client PM is not clear what is being asked of them.
The SharePoint Project Manager
will be working in unison with the partner project manager, solution architects
and lead developers amongst others and may need to liaise with other related
partners for workflow, packaged applications and other services. The sheer
weight of current market knowledge and partner experience will ensure that the
SharePoint Project Manager is able to drive the project or program forwards
whilst keeping control of both the budget and the partner activities like the
conductor of an orchestra. Would you employ a conductor that had never heard
the piece of music before?
As a SharePoint Project Manager is an
extremely knowledgeable resource, so they will be able to advise where and when
things should occur and when money will need to be spent and where it can be
saved. Here is a simple example. In deploying a SharePoint solution there may
be a requirement for cross-training the incumbent second level support team.
This may not have been anticipated in terms of cost and budget but by
understanding the potential requirement, the SharePoint Project Manager could
suggest that the incumbent team is trained to deploy the solution iterations as
part of the testing phase which in itself acts as a cross-skilling exercise.
There are a thousand examples
just like this. The more the SharePoint Project Manager brings to the table,
the safer the client program/project will be.
7. SharePoint PM skills establish a standard base line for the future
In a SharePoint service
implementation the SharePoint Project Manager is able to lead by example, to
demonstrate how things should be done, by putting into place the project assets
and collateral that can be reused time and time again. Assuming that SharePoint
is not being deployed for a single business service and that many others will
follow, so the skilled Project Manager will be adapting current processes and
existing project templates and documentation to suitably fit the subject of
SharePoint for future projects and as such will establish a performance and
process base line. This will occur as a natural part of the initial service
delivery process. It would be almost impossible to achieve this using someone
not already literate and experienced in SharePoint projects.
Whether you wish to call it
empathy, pathos, understanding or comprehension the SharePoint Project Manager
is able to work with everyone from the infrastructure architects through to
senior business management and take on board all aspects of the equation and
fit them together to ensure that SharePoint is delivered fit for purpose.
Whilst some of this occurs via
the solution architect role, the SharePoint Project Manager is partly
fulfilling a role of a SharePoint Business Strategist (hopefully Salem™ certified)
and taking no sides but working out how to fit the greater parts of the
strategic jigsaw together and then advising accordingly. In other words the
SharePoint Project Manager knows how to handle the complexities of the
SharePoint project in an objective fashion but to fight the corner of those who
are under-represented.
Into this area one can also pull
the complex area of SharePoint governance where diplomacy and skill is required
to put together the governance structures and groups who will drive the
policies that underpin the SharePoint program and projects.
There is a great deal of benefit
to be said for bringing in an independent SharePoint Project Manager from
outside the organisation (but not from the delivery partner) for the
establishment of the SharePoint business service program and duration of the
first SharePoint project delivery phase. This suggestion is primarily to gain
an independent view of the entire status quo, to ensure readiness and
preparation on behalf of the client and to allow the PM to say and do
things that are independent, unencumbered, uncomfortable, unpopular or indeed
impossible for an incumbent member of staff.
A SharePoint Project Manager role
is not an easy one and straddles a number of political camps regarding
ownership, business versus technology and others. I have encountered a large
SharePoint program where two directors competed continuously with one wishing
the other to fail. By being independent there is a greater chance of success
because the SharePoint Project Manager can drive through change and (hopefully)
remain above the day to day politics inherent in any organisation.
The chances of a SharePoint
Project Manager hiding behind an MS Project Gantt chart and weekly status
report are none existent. From the word go SharePoint is an all-encompassing,
all day, full-time activity that requires everything from ingenuity to strategic
skills to pull off successfully. For most other ‘players’ on the SharePoint
chessboard, they have very specific roles to play but the Project Manager is
asked to wear many hats, fill many shoes and sit in many chess squares, all at a
moment’s notice and be a friend, confidant and educator to everyone else. It is
for this reason alone that those who have successfully delivered a number of
major SharePoint projects have developed a skill range that is often exceptional,
though all too often underappreciated and undervalued.
Due to the wide ranging insight
and knowledge that SharePoint Project Managers bring to the table, they are
often seen as on-site subject matter experts handling far more than an
individual project and very often the entire service program. It is no wonder
therefore that to seek substantiation in their position, SharePoint Project
Managers are now seeking further substantiation of their experience and skills
through tracks such as the Certified Salem™ Practitioner.
I am sure you can add to this
list but these are ones that stand out for me. All Project Managers, whether
SharePoint literate or not, aim to deliver solutions to time and to budget as
well as to client satisfaction. When one project finishes another may commence
or a number of projects may run side by side. Most Project Managers are
certified in one or more project management methodologies which assist in
establishing process and control and can be adapted for any particular
organisation's internal processes. These things should be an absolute given.
The purpose of this article is to
demonstrate that there are very specific reasons why SharePoint Project
Managers are specialists who have a very particular, beneficial role to play and
are very valuable to the success of any client SharePoint™ engagement. There
will always be those who believe they know better on the client side and select
someone from their own internal team who is requested to learn on the job. This
decision often marks the difference between those clients who succeed with
SharePoint™ and those who fall by the wayside. For me the SharePoint Project
Manager is all too frequently the unsung, heroic lynchpin of the SharePoint
client service industry.
Copyright Genius! by Morgan & Wolfe. All Rights Reserved 2013.
Copyright Genius! by Morgan & Wolfe. All Rights Reserved 2013.
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