Sharepoint IA: What You Need to Know to Be Successful

SharePoint IA: What You Need to Know to be Successful

December 15, 2011 Seth Earley, Earley & Associates Chris Kolodziejski, MetaVis Technologies

• Housekeeping • Seth Earley: Challenge of Developing Information Architectures in SharePoint – What You Need to Know • Chris Kolodziejski: How Tools Like MetaVis Architect Can Help • Conclusions & Questions

• Webinar will last 60 minutes

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Founded - 1994 Headquarters - Boston, MA

What we do – Design and deliver content management and search solutions for companies and their customers

Our core team – 35 information and system architects, library scientists, process improvement consultants, project managers and other information management specialists

Our unique offering – Content Choreography™

Retail Our clients include – High Tech & Manufacturing Global 2000, major non- profits and government Pharmaceuticals & Life Sciences entities Financial Services & Insurance Media & Entertainment

clients

Communities of Practice • SharePoint IA Group: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SharePointIACoP/ • Taxonomy Group: http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/TaxoCoP • Search Group: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SearchCoP

Upcoming Webinar Events

• January 11, 2011 - Optimizing Business Value with SharePoint 2010 • More to be posted soon!

• SharePoint Information Architecture (3 days) . Houston, TX – January 18-20, 2012 . Washington, DC – February 8-10, 2012 . Chicago, IL – March14-15, 2012 . Los Angeles, CA – April 11-13, 2012

. Learn more and register: http://www.earley.com/training/sharepoint-informationarchitecture

• The Information Architecture Process . User Research & Requirements Gathering . Audience and Process Analysis . Roles, Responsibilities, Use cases, Personas and scenario development . Content Modeling and Content Type Definitions . Metadata Schemas and Taxonomy Development . Search Integration • Term Store Management . Creating and Managing Groups • Creating and Managing Content Types . Properties (Site Columns, Workflow, IM Policies) . Overview of Content Hubs . Adding Content Types to Document Libraries • Creating Metadata for Content Enrichment . Core Metadata Schemas . Leveraging Managed Metadata and the Term Store • Governance . Governance planning . Operationalizing governance using platform capability

Seth Earley Chief Executive Officer Earley & Associates

Chris Kolodziejski Product Manager MetaVis Technologies

SharePoint IA – What You Need to Know

Seth Earley

• Overview of "information architecture" concepts and their importance to SharePoint projects • Challenges for SharePoint IA • What skills and tools are needed to be successful • Available training for developing information architecture skills

Strategy, Current State Future Gap Heuristic Roadmap &

Assessment State Vision Analysis Evaluation Recommendations

& VISIONN &

STRATEGY

Requirements Content Audience Task Requirements & Analysis

Analysis Analysis Analysis Definition Findings

RESEARCH

& DISCOVER &

Solution Content Types Term Store Site Maps Use Cases, Design & Site Column & Taxonomy & Wireframe Workflow & Documents

DESIGN Design Development Design Authoring

& DEVELOP &

Test Plan User Tagging Auto Taxonomy & Execution

TEST Interface Processes Categorization

& VALIDATE &

Governance / Governance Socialization Migration Metrics Maintenance Strategy Communication Strategy Development Processes

MAINTAIN & Guidelines & Adoption & Approach & ENHANCE &

• This is a conceptual representation of the IA approach roughly broken into five work streams: . Strategy and Vision . Research and Discovery . Design and Development . Testing and Validation . Maintenance and Enhancement

• These are not necessarily discrete sets of activities, there is overlap

• Each document icon (last column) represents a deliverable which summarizes activities in that work stream. These may be combined into a single document.

• Chevrons represent tasks and activities. Not all need to be addressed or they may be addressed as parts of other tasks.

• Steps are not necessarily sequential. For example, Governance and Socialization happen at all levels

• Some deliverables are required as inputs for other processes. For example, Use Cases and User Scenarios are required for testing

• Challenge lies in going from an abstraction to something concrete.

• Many organizations are trying to “make the information easier to use” which is a broad ambiguous abstraction

• Need to answer: . What information? . For whom? . Accomplishing what task? . With what information?

• Many information management projects fail because they are too broad, scope is ambiguous, and outcome is not measurable.

• SharePoint IA needs to start with a focus on problems and processes

• May be broadened from this starting point, but cannot solve ambiguous problems

• In each forum, we are making observations about the current state: how people accomplish tasks, bottlenecks in processes, problems with information access and findability, challenges around inaccurate and incomplete information

• Need to translate observations about the information environment into a vision of how those issues can be resolved.

• Steps to the process: . Observe and gather data points (“what are the specific problems and challenges?”) . Summarize into themes (requires finding common elements, classifying problems according to overarching themes) . Translate themes into conceptual solutions (wouldn’t it be great if…?) . Develop scenarios that comprise solutions (day in the life) . Identify audiences who are impacted by scenarios (day in who’s life?) . Articulate tasks that audiences execute in scenarios (things they do) . Build detailed use cases around tasks and audiences (things they need to perform tasks . Identify content needed by audiences in specific use cases (things they need to perform tasks) . Develop organizing principles for content (arrange the things they need according to process, task or other organizing principle)

Personas/ Content Content Document Taxonomy Metadata Use Site Maps Audit Types Wireframes Libraries Cases

• Start with content • Develop the taxonomy • Create metadata fields • Assemble into content types • Align personas with use cases • Create site map based on use cases • Develop wireframes from site maps • Create document libraries and navigation based on site maps and wireframes

1. Content audit and analysis 2. Brainstorming and post it note exercise 3. Develop straw man taxonomy 4. Import terms into term store in SharePoint 5. Develop metadata attributes (site columns) 6. Content modeling 7. Requirements and themes 8. Personas, audiences, tasks and content 9. Use cases and scenarios 10. Site map development 11. Wireframes, libraries and views 12. Search scenarios and configuration 13. Governance processes

Initial • Discuss with users determination of • Brainstorm on locations content • Determine how and where people access content

Sample content • Determine amounts • Determine types from across • Determine condition repositories (audit) • Amount of redundant, outdated and trivial content

• Use automated processes to itemize all content Inventory all • Look for reusable organizing principles • Look for patterns content in scope • Determine ownership

Clean up and • Remove outdated content • Determine migration approach triage • Identify highest value information

You have been assigned to represent the consulting group during a planned migration to SP2010. Review sample documents Brainstorm other kinds of documents that Acme, as a consulting firm, would generate. Consider core organizing principles and content characteristics

• Every organization is struggling with findability

• Content management applications, search tools, workflow applications, customer relationship management systems, etc all strive to create views of information that are in the context of work processes

• What is the key component to any of these initiatives?

Having a common language in which to: •Describe •Communicate •Translate

information between applications and between user audiences

• Taxonomy is the foundation for information architecture

• Every design element in SharePoint requires a consistent set of organizing principles

• If we start with the core organizing principles first, the IA is a matter of structuring these into the constraints and constructs of SharePoint elements

. Site collection hierarchy - How multiple sites relate to one another, global navigation across sites . Site navigation – Organizational construct within a site, how document libraries are named and organized . Document library organization – How libraries sort, organize and view documents . Content model construction - Metadata fields (columns) that comprise content types . List definition – Values that drive fields (columns) that use controlled vocabularies . Faceted search – Metadata fields that are exposed to users to perform attribute based search. Facets depend on user context and content model . Roles for security and personalization – Types of users that have specific privileges or who may be interested in specific subjects

Term Group Attributes

Term Set

Terms

• Definition – A Site Column is a reusable construct that can be assigned to one or more lists, libraries and/or content types. • Represent an attribute or piece of metadata and are used to help ensure consistency of application and determine how data is stored and displayed. • Used for: . Content enrichment . Workflow . Managing information lifecycle . Sorting, filtering and grouping documents and/or list items

Terminology Check: Property = Field = Metadata = Column

• Metadata is often modeled in a spreadsheet outlining:

25 Copyright © 2011 Earley & Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Requirements and Themes - Requirements Analysis • Summary of data and observations from a variety of sources summarized into key themes

• Summary of data and observations from a variety of sources summarized into key themes • Important to have an audit trail for source of observations

27 Copyright © 2011 Earley & Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Personas, audiences, tasks and content Jonathan Miller Domestic Business Customer Audience: Business Featured Scenario: Country: USA Jonathan uses the abc.com website to help Language: English him make business decisions through • Personal Profile online information and tools • It took some doing, but Jonathan Miller Scenario found a workable balance between being “I will take the single dad of a 6-year-old and working knowledge from Jonathan has been asked by his firm’s VP of Business Development to assess a full schedule at a venture capital firm. whence it comes” the financial soundness of four business plans. The plans have one thing in With childcare help from his mother, common – they all involve enhancing or expanding global operations. mother-in-law and a part-time babysitter, Jon quickly assesses the revenue and cost profile, but does not have an Jonathan’s daughter has returned to a adequate handle on the risks. He needs to quantify the risks, assess their semblance of the secure, reassuring impact on each plan, and validate their risk mitigation. existence she had when her mother was Six months earlier at an HBS reunion, Jonathan met up with an old grad school alive. With stability at home renewed, buddy who told him about his wife who worked at ABC as an international Jonathan has been able to focus time on underwriter. his career. background Jon decides to check out AIG’s website to see if it can provide him with information and guidance on international risk and specifics on each country. • Jonathan’s role as a strategic investment • 44-year-old, man, widower, 6-year-old daughter, moderate analyst at the venture capital firm rose • BS in Electrical Engineering, SMU; MBA Harvard from the ashes of a company that • Works at venture capital firm in Boston; lives in Back Bay Behavior shuttered its doors after the dot-com implosion. He was CFO at the defunct firm • $240K annual income / $2M net worth • After tucking in his daughter, Jon points his browser to abc.com. He and had befriended the VP of the venture • Hobbies: Tennis, local politics, chess navigates (searches?) to “corporate risk” and finds highly relevant risk management information and tools (e.g., spreadsheet templates). firm. Jonathan has dreams of becoming a • Favorite Web sites: CNN, Yahoo! Finance, Hoovers, • Jon clicks on a catalog of AIG’s risk advisory services, spots an entry titled partner of the firm but given the tough Edgaronline economic climate, that goal seems further “Global Risk Analysis,” and reads the short blurb. off. • Jon, convinced that ABC is capable of helping him, dials the number listed attributes on the site, and schedules a conference call with the advisory group. • Because Jonathan doesn’t compromise in • Heads-down, methodical, thorough • Jon makes approval of two of the plans contingent on the companies spending time with his daughter, he often adding certain insurance coverage to their risk management plans – works on projects late into the night after • Highly intelligent, respectful, task-oriented coverages he learned about on the ABC site. he puts his daughter to bed. He doesn’t • Confident in his abilities, but humble enough to hesitate to avail himself of useful Internet incorporate others’ expertise tools and websites, but doesn’t have much Features time or interest for gratuitous surfing. site needs • Product and services categorization • Jonathan is talented at distilling risk • Risk assessment tools • Useful risk management information and tools that will management, insurance and financial • Other tools, presentations, etc., to help him help us sell advice into consumable reports for his help him analyze and decide bosses. He takes full advantage of the • Comfort that ABC not only knows risk, but provides related resources at his disposal: sophisticated advisory services; ease in navigating between the two research databases at the office and his Alternative Scenarios • A comprehensive catalog of services that can be extensive network of professional • A new ABC product is introduced; Jon wants to note which IPOs in his portfolio contacts. He will use the Web to the uncovered without excessive navigation should consider it degree that it adds quality to his work • Clear contact information regarding different aspects of • Jon is already a customer product. risk management • Jon is cross-sold life insurance • Jon wishes to begin researching savings options for his daughter’s college education “Establish relationships at all levels through professional and valuable experiences” 28 Copyright © 2011 Earley & Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Personas, Audiences, Tasks and Content

• Audiences need content to support tasks

• In some cases, we can develop a matrix that maps the audience needs to specific tasks and content that supports those tasks

• This matrix is useful when performing content reviews and analysis and ensuring that use cases are supported by appropriate content and organizing principles

Approximately 100 tasks plus several not covered

• Users can be identified by their characteristics, tendencies, preferences, and aptitudes through the development of user profiles and personas . A profile is a description of a user role based on their job tasks and objectives . A persona is a description of their personality and details of their lifestyle

• Use cases are specific, step by step interactions with a system

• Scenarios are a “day in the life”, higher level description of the things that they need to accomplish

• Use Cases provide step by step instructions. They describe how each type of user interacts with an application. They are also depicted as diagrams that visualize the steps and paths needed to complete a task...

User Cases are used test the ability to locate specific content based on labeling and the hierarchy mental model

Can also be used to test simulated faceted search

Navigation is Problem: Fragmented user experience “naturally” only when navigating between different site within a Site collections Collection

• Specific to a Site Collection • Based largely on Sites and Sub Sites • Quick launch shows “current site” elements • Top-level navigation shows sub sites and peers Solution: Requires custom development for the creation of a consistent experience across the environment

Provide an intuitive, unambiguous and meaningful name for the group of content

Goal is to have users group like types of content together in meaningful ways.

Purpose: Provide a visual illustration of the logical organization of site content

Named Cluster

Brainstorm a site map for how content might be organized for ACME Consulting

• Common need to create multiple sites and site collections due to volume of content, management of security and permissions etc.

• A listing of documents presented in a row (content) and column (metadata) format. Some examples: . Product Documents (fields for Name, Description, Resource Type, Author, Topic etc.)

Document Type of Metadata Document

Create document libraries Create 2 views add navigational hierarchy add key filters etc.

• A Wireframe provides a blueprint that represents the framework for how content and other user interface elements are organized within a page template. • Intentionally intended to illustrate conceptual layout and therefore often lack real content examples and visual design. • Primarily focus on: . Types of information presented and content priority . Features and functionality . Common elements such as headers, footers, global, utility and secondary navigation • Developed based on a combination of information modeling and access requirements .

Where is the Governance?

• It’s commonplace with SharePoint to start with the technology first and push off the gathering and documentation of requirements until later, if at all. . Adopted by IT followed by the provisioning of a few sites as business users become aware of its existence (easy to deploy). . Mass proliferation of sites, lists and libraries and an assortment of individuals and groups start to turn on various bits of functionality resulting in a deployment that is haphazard and confusing.

• SharePoint has been specifically designed to remove management of the information environment away from IT and into the hands of business users. . Governance becomes crucial since many organizations lack standard ways of managing content. . Permissioning and site management are often dropped into the lap of a single or small group of uninformed individuals that are unaware of best practices in areas like content management, information architecture, taxonomy and metadata

• The SharePoint environment is only as good as the underlying structure that supports it. Without governance, even the best designed implementations will fail. . Governance is what makes it work and is the glue that holds it all together.

• Because businesses evolve and requirements change, SharePoint projects are never really complete. . Maintenance and enhancement activities are an ongoing process.

• Need to continuously update and maintain the overall information strategy and content models as business requirements evolve. . Includes taxonomy, metadata, controlled vocabularies, and content structure. . Changes however, cannot just happen on a whim, maintenance and governance processes must be put in place to systematically review proposed modifications.

• Without governance: . Increased operational costs - wasted time . Decreased findability - Difficult to find the “right” content

Spans Structured and Unstructured Processes

Chaotic Processes Controlled Processes

Problem solving Accessing information Collaboration Answering questions

Knowledge Creation Knowledge Reuse

LESS STRUCTURE MORE STRUCTURE

Email Learning Document Records Instant Blogs Management Management Management Management Messaging

Collaborative Web Content Digital Asset Process Wikis

Spaces Management Management Management CLASS of TOOL ofCLASS

Centralized My Sites Publishing

Not all content is of equal value Lower Value Higher Value (More difficult to access) (Easier to access)

Lower Cost Formal Tagging/Organizing Processes Higher Cost

Unfiltered Reviewed/Vetted/Approved

Example External News Interim Benchmarks Best Practices deliverables deliverables

Message Discussion Content Success text Approved

postings Repositories Stories Methods TYPE OF CONTENT OF TYPE

Social tagging Structured tagging (“folksonomy”) (taxonomy)

• Centralization vs. decentralization (control vs. freedom)

• Different types of sites frequently require different governance policies . Globally scoped sites, such as a corporate Intranet, usually apply stricter governance over information management than do team collaboration sites

Source: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=33a8c9e0-57c2-4ae5-99e3-8826ab9dd701&displaylang=en

. Learn more and register: http://www.earley.com/training/sharepoint-informationarchitecture

• With course registration you get a free license for MetaVis architect.

• Ability to explore, view and document SharePoint sites

• Tools to compare designs from site to site

• Ability to push and synch design elements

• Provides oversight, enforcement and governance over site design standards

Tools Can Help Address Challenges with Building Taxonomies in SharePoint

• Collaboration • Standardization/Replication • Must be designed online • Complex to redesign

• Visual Notes • Save, email and print out

• Reuse content types, columns and list • Compare Sites • Search

MetaVis Architect Demo

Wrap up and Questions

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Let us know what topics you are interested in and how we can improve the series. Email your suggestions to [email protected]

Seth Earley CEO Earley & Associates

Phone: 781-820-8080 Email: [email protected]

Follow me on twitter: sethearley Connect with me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/sethearley

Andrew Celentano Director, Business Development Earley & Associates

Phone: 617-721-6092 Email: [email protected]

Thank you