Implementing SharePoint within Federal Government Agencies – Best Practices “From the Consulting Trenches”

Implementing SharePoint within Federal Government Agencies – Best Practices “From the Consulting Trenches” \ Tips for Government IT Executives & Appointees

Walking into Continental Airlines to implement an Enterprise SharePoint Deployment is entire different animal than walking into an organization like the Department of Justice (DOJ) for nearly the exact same initiative, or should I say Task Order. (The DOJ has had a great deal of success in SharePoint and I am merely using them as a large government institute example).

I had the privilege of having a breakfast meeting with the previous Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the United States, Vivek Kundra, last year and it was refreshing to hear his ideas about how “Big Government” should take the “lean” methodologies and best practices approach from private industry as well as his ideas on how to cut out a lot of the “fat” and red tape.

He has since left his Obama Presidential CIO (1st ever Chief Information Officer) appointment to take an Executive Vice President (EVP) position at Salesforce, but I am hopeful his ideas were passed on to administration and/or the”powers to be” as implementing a game changing and bleeding edge technology like SharePoint 2010 in a government organization can sometimes be a challenge.

I have been very vocal about my personal methodologies and best practices \ theories and those of my Sr. architects at EPC Group on how best to implement SharePoint at places such as the Pentagon, Department of Justice, multiple Air Force bases, the Department of State, Health and Human Services, the National Institute of Health, and various 3 letter organizations.

From my 10+ years of SharePoint implementation experience and 653+ SharePoint implementations (literally), I would like to express my personal 5 point plan (tips and first-hand experience advice \ mandate) on how to ensure government-sized success 100% of the time (saving millions of tax payer dollars) to CIOs, 2 & 3 Stars, high-level appointees, and the people that make the I.T. wheels turn in D.C.

My personal soapbox: Errin O’Connor’s mandates for Federal Government SharePoint I.T. Success:

1. Streamline how to get to the best SharePoint talent without the need for subcontractors to then subcontract to 2 other subcontractors… (I digress, but the amount of money I have personally seen on submitting a Statement of Work \ Proposal to a Federal Agency and then the track that has taken for 2 or 3 more firms to get involved to take an initial hourly rate from $140/hour rate to an eventual $240/hour rate blows my mind).

I am a taxpayer too and when you are talking about a 1500-5000 hour engagement, this is no small amount of money (budget) to spend (so the “good old boys club” can play contract swap and task order bingo and who has the approved 8a Stars lottery to fast track this project, to me, is personally repulsive and a taxpayer waste.

Note: I am taking nothing away from legitimate and deserving 8a Stars organizations as I believe in what they do, rightly deserve, and what they contribute but I think the GSA should take a hard look at this “status” as, in my opinion, is being abused. (Note: My personal opinion)
2. Do not be afraid to break the trends of the past | we are in the mobile age, a 1 Star General is going to get an iPad for Christmas or for their Birthday and want to use it; Have your “MMGS”, Mobile Management Governance Strategy, in order, yesterday.

3. The new employees coming into government careers are the “Facebook” generation, yes, governance is key, but stifling (internal) content development keeps the status quo’

Note: A quick sidebar: I had a conversation with a Department of Defense related member, that said, “Due to the economy, we are getting the best and the brightest candidates in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines that we have had in “some” years, and they expect information now….”at their fingertips” and we are not prepared to service that request.

4. Do not just go with the consulting firm who developed the software, trust me, I have personally hired some of them and they are not always the rock stars. EPC Group, who has had over 650 successful implementations (not tooting our own horn), and sometimes will question getting involved in specific 6-8 month RFP \ proposals due to the fact that it is not worth the lengthy procurement process and contract bingo \ eBay-swap will instead take a Fortune 500 \ Fortune 1000 engagement that we know we can get executive buy-in and bring extensive SharePoint Return-on-Investment (ROI) to the table. (Note: WIthout sharing our proprietary and time tested methodologies to every IT firm interested in bidding the effort)

5. “Boutique” SharePoint Firms (like EPC Group), at the top of their game, are not always ok with sharing their proprietary methodologies with the big “7” government contractors…. something to think about and to weigh the risk factors. Why would a private firm (such as EPC Group or other respected SharePoint firms), share their time tested, “in the trenches” methodologies with an approved (massive) government contractor, who has the larger $250-500 million dollar Task Order and who can add a minuscule “SharePoint Task Order” to the overall effort (under generic verbiage) to win and staff \ deliver a project of 100-500k and risk that Big 7 firm, from turning and reverse engineering, that methodology to their own benefit. It can happen...

Note: Some of the very top talent in the SharePoint arena would, in private admit, “they would rather stay in the private sector arena and not risk their life work, i.e. risk 20k hours of 100+ employees combined knowledge and best (learned from mistakes and lessons-learned that now work time and time again), best practices for a 1 time project with zero promise of future phases with a firm who won a $250-500 million dollar “generic” task order for “IT Systems Support”.

This to me is completely frustrating and not a way to increase getting the best and the brightest to get the project done fast and efficiently. Some peoples, joking and under their breath stereotypes (about all the red tape) didn’t come from thin air and why can’t we cut out that red tape and implement a government solution for SharePoint 2010, including the NARA (The National Archives), as this information is eventually going to become part of the Freedom of Information Act.

I know personally (public information) that some of the original Space Shuttle data, now in the process of being or already archived, was originally stored in a SharePoint 2003 environment. How the National Archives (NARA) going to take that data in and make it searchable? Are we going to put it on a CD and test it (the CD\DVD) yearly to ensure it’s still valid once a year? There is such a seamless and better way this can be accomplished! (Imagine a SharePoint as a Service Platform within NARA, taking in all Government SharePoint data seamlessly regardless of what version of SharePoint that data is on?)

Final Thought…

My personal goal is for the United States government to get onboard with a solution, for not only SharePoint, but the other document management systems as well, and collaborate (led by the National Archives) to be able to take in (securely) these “content databases \ external data sources” from SharePoint 2003, SharePoint 2007, SharePoint 2010, and future versions, in a seamless manner.

There are NARA teams in Colorado that are metadata specialists that can work with all of the government agencies to develop a standard set of metadata (core content types) so that NARA can inherit content from these systems (NASA, NAVY, DoD, etc.) in a seamless and secure manner to ensure document security, seamless metadata “matching” and other requirements are stored in a 100% searchable and compliant manner.

Let’s cut the red tape with a huge set of scissors and let in some “out of the box” thinking into the many governmental :institutional" way of thinking. There are so many extreemly bright at IT folks at the top of their game in IT working at these agencies but my personally opinion from observasations as that they feel sometimes one hand is tied behind their back when they want to make real progress and real ROI changes to their organization.

650 Successful SharePoint Implementations | Dissecting a Decade of EPC Group Enterprise SharePoint Success (Article 1 of 4) 650 Successful SharePoint

Background

I am writing this article (Article 1 of 4) as myself and my organization, EPC Group.net, has embarked on and completed our 653 successful SharePoint implementation. In the sections below, I am going to dissect how an Enterprise or Global SharePoint implementation project can become a success 99% of the time. With SharePoint being one of the most popular software platforms in the world, there are new 20 webinars a week from this month's newest experts, 30 new articles on “how governance should really work, this way….” ,and 5 new SharePoint firms popping up every few months (with quite a few failing and others being acquired, for both good and bad reasons.

I am extremely proud of my team at EPC Group.net as we celebrate this 650 successful project mark and 13 years of being in business. This article is meant to covering over a decade of real-life SharePoint “In the trenches consulting”, the 500 gallons of coffee consumed, hundreds of working lunches, and thousands of hours of experience that I would like to share from EPC Group with the AIIM community.

Success!

When you log in to your computer tomorrow morning, your browser’s home page will display our organization’s new “SharePoint” solution. This is an exciting time for us because this new (ECM\Intranet\Collaboration\ or “Hybrid” = all of these) platform has been designed to provide not only a consistent look and feel but a user-friendly way for our organization’s staff to store your documents, collaborate with your team members, classify sensitive and business critical information, as well as open up a “Professional Networking” (Social Networking) platform for you to communicate and have your own personal My Site within the organization.

Note: I have posted hyperlinks to previous articles on the topics in the previous section at the end of this article for your review and reference.

Please follow the training links that have been provided to the new SharePoint Training Site that contains not only how-to videos but a wealth of information on how the new system operates and will benefit and increase productivity throughout our organization. We have identified Power Users within each department and these users will assist with any “level 1” type questions about the new platform and the links provided in the help section will allow you to contact the “Help Desk \ SharePoint Support Team” for any additional issues or questions you may have…

Thank you,

The SharePoint Executive Sponsor

How Did We Get to the Message Above (Go-Live)? What Were the Steps that Ensured our Successful Implementation?

SharePoint Training Session(S)

Before any go-live of a new SharePoint 2010 platform or future SharePoint release, you first have to ensure successful training as well as identification of Power Users \ Super Users. EPC Group likes to hold training and train-the-trainer session with our clients. (Sample agenda included below) Note: The pages numbers are out of our training guide and do not need to be referenced.

Agenda - level 1

I. Getting Acquainted

a. Welcome to SharePoint Portal (pages: 9 - 10)

b. Finding information when you need it (pages: 11 - 13)

c. Browsing the Site Map (page: 14)

d. Orientation to a Site (pages: 16 - 18)

e. Navigating in SharePoint (pages: 19 - 20)

f. The Anatomy of a SharePoint Site (page: 21)

II. Setting Up A Site

a. Custom and out of the box Templates (pages: 22 - 23)

b. About Lists (pages: 24 - 34)

c. Working with Announcements (pages: 35 - 37)

d. Working with Calendar (pages: 38 - 40)

e. Using Contacts (pages: 41 - 42)

f. Using Tasks (pages: 43 - 45)

g. Using the Link List (pages: 46 - 47)

III. Working with Documents and Document Libraries (pages: 55 – 76)

a. Overview

b. Adding Documents to a Library

c. Working in Explorer View

d. Checking out/in

e. Versioning

f. Recycle Bin

g. Sending Links to Files in SharePoint

IV. Working with Columns and Views (pages: 79 - 95)

a. Overview

b. Editing Column Properties

c. Adding Additional Columns to a List

d. Creating a Custom Column

e. About/Creating Views.

Agenda - level 2

V. Securing a Site (pages: 108 – 124)

a. A Word about Permissions

b. Understanding Permission Levels

c. Adding Users to Default SharePoint Group

d. Creating a Permission Level

e. Creating a Custom SharePoint Group

f. Editing a Group’s Permission Level

g. Removing a User from a Group

h. Assigning a User Individual Rights

i. Editing a User’s Permissions

j. Managing Access to Libraries and Lists

VI. Administering Your Site (pages: 126 – 132)

a. Managing Regional Settings

b. Monitoring Site Usage and Space Allocation

c. Monitoring Site Usage

d. Monitoring Space Allocation

e. Auditing SharePoint Sites

VII. Advanced Topics

a. Custom Content Type & Metadata

b. Web Parts\ InfoPath Forms & Workflow

d. Business Solutions

e. Custom Site Templates

Let’s Get Into Dissecting a Successful Engagement and the Method to EPC Group’s Project Methodologies

Project Initiation and Planning - Initiation and Definition Activities

Once the EPC Group sales and consulting staff has worked with our clients to scope and build the overall proposal and the project has been won, it is time for the Project Management Office (PMO) to start engaging as well as planning the details such as:

· Create Work Breakdown Structure

· Perform Resource planning

· Create Project Schedule

· Preparing the Budget

· Conduct Schedule Review

The EPC Group team now develops the supporting plan definition activities and Project Initiation activities such as the:

· Communication and Controlling Procedures

· Compile and inspect Project Definition Document

· Review and Approve Project Definition Document

EPC Group then rolls into our project kickoff sessions \ Preparing for Kickoff

Conduct Project Review and Kickoff Processes

· Implement EPC Group’s Project Control Documents and our internal Project

Server 2010 environment

· Kicking of Requirements Gathering

o Conduct Initial Requirements Gathering Sessions and Determine

Audience

o Content Sessions

o Conduct Content Requirement Session

o Conduct Content Requirement Session

· Services Sessions

o Conduct Services Requirement Session

· Equipment Sessions

· Conduct Global Equipment Requirement Session

· People Sessions

· Conduct People Requirement Session

· Conduct Global People Requirement Session

· Backend Application

· Conduct Backend Application Investigation

· Steering Committee Sessions

· Conduct Steering Committee Member Interviews

· Develop Requirements Document

· Conduct Requirements Document Review and Apply Updates

· Requirements Document Complete

• Obtain Requirements Document Client Sign Off
• Requirements Phase End Review

Conduct Phase End Assessment - Requirements Phase End Review Complete

Onsite Reviews

Conduct 1st - Onsite Review Planning Session

Development Environment

• SharePoint_ ORDER HARDWARE_SOFTWARE COMPLETE
• SharePoint_ HARDWARE_SOFTWARE RECEIVED
• SharePoint_STAGE HARDWARE_SOFTWARE COMPLETE

- Provide SharePoint team support in Development Configuration

Governance Document

Governance Overview Meeting

Discover Working Sessions

• Define SharePoint Service
• Define Equipment for Environment
• Define Software
• Define Policies

Design Work Sessions

• Building Organizational Diagrams
• Build Proposed Model
• Define Information Management
• Define Organizational Structure

Governance Document Draft

• Construct SharePoint Services Documentation
• Construct Equipment for Environment Documentation
• Construct Software Documentation
• Construct Information Management Documentation
• Construct Organization Documentation
• Construct Policies Documentation
• Review Draft Governance Documentation with Client

Governance Document Final

• Construct SharePoint Services Documentation
• Construct Equipment for Environment Documentation
• Construct Software Documentation
• Construct Information Management Documentation
• Construct Organization Documentation
• Construct Policies Documentation
• Review Draft Governance Documentation with Client

Obtain Governance Document Client Sign off

SharePoint Roadmap

• Develop Roadmap Document
• Review Roadmap Document

Obtain Roadmap Document Client Sign Off

EPC Group - Begins Design Portion of the Initiative

• Design Process Overview Meeting

Server Configuration

• Identify document management approach
• Identify existing content sources _content audit or inventory
• Determine content migration methodology
• Review server software requirements
• Plan Recycle Bin use and Site recovery
• Determine site provisioning model and user experience

Determine Roles and Usage Patterns of Users

• Identify number and anticipated usage patterns of users of the Web front end
• Identify number and anticipated usage patterns of document management users
• Identify number and anticipated usage patterns of search users

Plan Capacity

• Determine normal load from roles and usage patterns
• Determine number of documents stored and document store size
• Estimate index size
• Determine needs for growth
• Determine peak load factor

My Next 3 Articles Detailing EPC Group’s Decade of SharePoint Success Will Entail:

• Security Best Practices and Consulting Methodologies
• Performance Best Practices and Consulting Methodologies
• Failover and Disaster Recovery Best Practices
• Reviewing and Selecting 3^rd Party SharePoint ISV’s and Tools
• Localization Best Practices
• Long-term Maintenance Best Practices
• Content Navigation and Its Structure
• ECM \ Metadata \ Content Type Design
• Retention Schedule \ ECM \ ERM Workflow Development Meeting Expiration Basis Data of Related Metadata
• Detailed Training Overview Best Practices – With an Emphasis on “Real World” Training and not “Canned” Out-of-the-box Training
• Testing \ Break-fix, etc. Best Practices
• Communication Best Practices
• Migration Best Practices from Systems such as eRoom, FileNet, Hummingbird, Documentum, LiveLink, and many others
• Project Management Communication Strategies for Consultants and Business Analysts

I would like to thank my many staff members at EPC Group for our success over the past 13 years and these 650+ implementations as these methodologies and strategies were developed by a massive team effort over many projects over these many years.

I also referenced several of my previous AIIM articles which I have listed below for your reference to the terms in this post:

• Implementing Global Intranet Governance with a Proper Long-term Roadmap

• SharePoint Consulting - Developing a SharePoint 2010 Steering Committee

• Best Practices for SharePoint Cultural Change Management - From the SharePoint Consulting Trenches

• Why Large Enterprise and Global SharePoint Deployments Will Not Work in the Cloud

• Is Records Management and Usability, Together, Even Possible?

• SharePoint 2010 Web Standards, Accessibility, and Usability Quick Reference Guide

• My Site Implementation in SharePoint 2010 – A Best Practices Strategy

• Selecting the Right SharePoint Consulting Firm: Comparing Apples to Apples, or Apples to Oranges

• The SharePoint 2010 “Magical Mystery Tour”

• A “Phase 0” Approach for SharePoint 2010

• Navigating the “World of SharePoint 2010” and All It Encompasses - Part 1

• SharePoint 2010 - A Learning Management System (LMS) for Government\DoD, Private Sector\Fortune 1000, and Educational Institutions | (SP vs. Blackboard)

• SharePoint 2010, Mobility, Browser Compatibility, Compliance, and its Continued Dominance in the Marketplace

• Developing a Hybrid SharePoint 2010 ERM \ ECM Platform (SPaaS)

A Message and 2012 Roadmap from EPC Group's CEO, Errin O'Connor

EPC Group - Time Tested and Proven

A Message from Our CEO

EPC Group is the nation’s leading Microsoft SharePoint Consulting firm but we are more than just a SharePoint consultancy. EPC Group is a nationwide leader in Microsoft Solutions delivery and services provider that enables technology to fit the business and functional requirements of our clients. EPC Group’s services range from not only our unprecedented SharePoint (Enterprise Content Management (ECM \ ERM), Global Intranet initiatives, Analytics, Collaboration and Social \ Professional Networking) solutions, but to the entire Microsoft Suite of solutions and beyond.

The vision for EPC Group in 2012, and since our founding in 1999, if to offer innovation through best practices “in the trenches” consulting services and solution development to not only improve our client’s productivity and continued innovation to ensure their continued success but to look toward the future and develop long-term roadmap and platforms that will be relevant for years to come after their deployment.

Our vast professional services offerings of not only Microsoft SharePoint but Microsoft Project Server, Business Intelligence and Analytics, Custom Development (workflows, custom User Interface (UI) design, and industry leading Project Management, Mobile Development, Business Consulting Services, I.T. Roadmap development, and many others.

At EPC Group, we have evolved over time into industry thought leaders for implementing efficient (doing it right the first time) professional services while providing “soup to nuts” capabilities in multiple platforms from initial discovery, business requirements gathering, implementation and configuration, custom development, training, post go-live support, and truly being there for our clients.

EPC Group employees are truly the best in the business. I am proud to say that my strategy of hiring people smarter than me time and time again while continuing to adapt to the ever changing market, economy, technology stacks, and the unforeseen has given EPC Group a brand name in this industry that we are very proud of and will continue to work every day to sustain regardless of the challenge.

At EPC Group, we cannot afford to have a bad project. Not from a financial perspective, but the I.T. world is a very small community even thou there are thousands of professionals worldwide who may be doing similar initiatives, we have the EPC Group brand and reputation to protect. EPC Group is committed to offering you a guarantee of a successful project from the experts who, in many cases, literally wrote the books on the technology.
I personally am committed to ensuring our clients success and employing and partnering with EPC Group’s staff of unprecedented hard working, industry leading, honest, and brilliant professionals.

In 2012, you will see EPC Group continue to grow as we engage in even more global initiatives and will be providing our continued webinars, case studies, workshops, and other mechanisms to not only fill your inbox with yet another service provider wanting to showcase their solutions, but to be connecting with EPC Group who has over 640 successful SharePoint engagements, 75 Project Server engagements, 100’s of custom development, analytics\ business intelligence, custom user interface, and other efforts from our ever growing set of offerings to provide you real-word answers.

If you every have a question about EPC Group, you can not only reach out to our staff whom you may already be in contact with, but personally contact me anytime on my personal cell (713) 410-9950 or email at errino@epcgroup.net and I will work with you and your organization to ensure whatever the project, however daunting the challenge, to know you are not only hiring a “consulting firm” but a partner who will work with you while providing continuous knowledge transfer and honest feedback about what you are trying to accomplish.




Errin O’Connor – EPC Group
Founder and CEO

Implementing Global Intranet Governance with a Proper Long-term Roadmap

By Errin O'Connor, Founder & CEO at EPC Group.net - January 10, 2012 - 6:52 AM


Original AIIM.ORG Article Found Here

You have probably been flooded with external sources telling you what SharePoint Governance really is and I am here to state mine and my SharePoint Consulting organization, EPC Group’s, definitive and believe only true way to implement Global Intranet Governance with a forward looking roadmap to match. For Global organizations with tens of thousands of users, the Return on Investment by following this strategy below should be in the millions.

I have written a number of articles for AIIM but I can confidently stand behind my position on Global Intranet Governance and Roadmaps because EPC Group is engaged in there literally every day and for nearly the past decade.

To state a few probably obvious facts, but to build the case for EPC Group’s strategy here:

What is Governance?
•Governance is the set of processes and policies affecting the way a system is directed, administered or controlled.
◦Includes the relationships among the stakeholders involved and the goals of the system.
◦Creates mechanisms that try to reduce incomplete information

Why Governance?
•IT’s capability is directly related to the investment choices taken by management that have long term consequences for various stakeholders
•Governance implies a system in which all stakeholders, including the board, executive management, customers, and staff have clear accountability for their respective responsibilities in the decision making processes affecting IT.
A Typical SharePoint Governance Plan (Uni-Centric Deployment)

The following are typically subjects hit on in a SharePoint Uni-Centric Deployment plan:
•People
◦Roles & Teams
◦Sponsorship
•Process and Policies
◦Security
◦Content Management
◦Hardware & Services
◦Procedures
•Communication and Training
◦Communication Plan
◦Training Plan
◦Support Plan

Global SharePoint Considerations
(Note: These are all specific to Global, Large Scale, Fortune 1000 Deployments)

•WAN Performance
•Farm Administration
•Help Desk and Support
•Cross Farm Services
◦User Profiles/My Sites
◦Managed Metadata
◦Search
•Availability and Replication

Global WAN Performance
•A typical LAN user will generally have an initial page load time of about 2 seconds.
◦A broadband user, with continental latency, would experience up to 2x-4x response time (e.g. 4-8 seconds)
◦A broadband user, with global latency, would experience up to 4x-8x response time (e.g. 8-16 seconds)
◦Low bandwidth, and extremely high latency response times’ experience is hard to predict

Global Farm Administration Considerations
•Provisioning
◦Web Application Creation
◦Site Collection Creation
◦Content Databases
•Features and Solutions
•Local Service Applications
◦Excel Services
◦Access Service
◦Vision Graphics Service
◦Word Automation Services
◦Word Viewing

Global Help Desk and Support Considerations
•Operations
◦System Administrators
◦Site Collection Administrators
•Multi-Tiered Support
◦Tier 1: Help Desk
◦Tier 2: Subject Matter Experts
◦Tier 3: Farm Administrators
•Support and Administrative Training

Global Governance: Isolation Levels Examples

Level | Definition | SharePoint Meaning (Potential)

Isolation Tier 1 (I1)

(Global)
·Out of the box SharePoint
·Out of the box Security
·Uptime During Business Operating Hours (7am-5pm EST M-F) ·Same SharePoint Farm
Same IIS Application Pool
·Same Web Application
·Same Site Collection
·Same Content Database

Isolation Tier 2 (I2)
(Global)
·Custom SharePoint Features
·Unique SharePoint Permission
·Uptime During Business Operating Hours (7am-5pm EST M-F) ·Same SharePoint Farm
·Separate IIS Application Pool
·Same Web Application
·Separate Site Collection
·Separate Content Database

Isolation Tier 3 (I3)
(Local)
·Third Party Application
·Custom Functionality
·24 x 7 Uptime requirements.
·Unique SharePoint Permission ·Separate SharePoint Farm
·Separate IIS Application Pool
·Separate Web Application
·Separate Site Collection
·Separate Content Database

Global Governance: Service Agreement Examples
Service Level Agreement 1 (SLA 1)
·Recycle Bin Policy set to 30
·Weekly Full Backups and Daily Incremental
·Uptime During Business Hours Backup Retention for 6 months ·Same SharePoint Farm
·Same IIS Application Pool
·Same Web Application
·Same Site Collection
·Same Content Database

Service Level Agreement 2 (SLA 2)
·Recycle Bin Policy set to 120
·Weekly Full Backups and Daily Incremental
·Backup Retention 6 months
·Backup Retention for Incremental Backup for 4 Weeks
·Uptime During Business Hours
·After Hours Technical Support ·Separate Farm
·Separate Database Server


EPC Group's Lessons Learned
•—Intranet and Internet Deployments
1.Identify Global Governance Board early
2.Roadmap features and solutions for at least 12 months
3.Get buy-in not only from global stakeholders but from local support groups as well
4.Create a unified governance model for ALL farms as though they are one

•—Project and Team Collaboration Deployments
1.Identify the Global Governance Board early
2.Set limits on what is globally governed and what is locally governed
3.Create a high-level global governance which focuses on overall policies, architecture and processes
4.Create local governance extensions which cover people, local policies, local processes and operating procedures and needs.

Summary
A Global SharePoint Intranet or Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Deployment is a whole different animal than a non-Global deployment. In the weeks to come I will touch on additional considerations such as using tools such as Riverbed to increase SharePoint's WAN performance, language packs, international law considerations such as the Patriot Act, the Freedom of Information Act, etc. and how those can affect your server placement and how to implement a Global deployment with real cost savings in mind.

I have been extremely lucky to be surrounded by my brilliant colleagues at EPC Group who have also been on the ground in places like Germany, Australia, Japan, etc. and experience these situations first hand and I enjoy sharing this type of real “in the trenches” knowledge from our lessons learned over the years.

I would also encourage you to read one of my previous articles on developing a Hybrid SharePoint Platform as this also builds upon these type of Global Deployment and long-term roadmap strategies and best practices.

Buyer's Guide: SharePoint Archiving Solutions

Buyer's Guide: SharePoint Archiving Solutions
"Archive SharePoint content to help keep your SharePoint environment running smoothly "

By: Caroline Marwitz
Windows IT Pro

Original article link (Windows IT Pro): http://www.windowsitpro.com/article/sharepoint/sharepoint-archiving-solutions-141264

Microsoft SharePoint has become what email was a decade ago: a dumping ground for content. Companies are realizing that this content needs to be managed, secured, and -- in many cases -- archived.

The first two needs are obvious, but why would you want to archive SharePoint content? For three simple yet compelling reasons: data reduction (which can affect performance), governance, and compliance.

"Archiving tools . . . help you maintain the size of your content databases as well as allow for real-time version-history archiving," said Errin O'Connor, who has more than a decade's worth of experience with SharePoint and is founder and CEO of EPC Group.net. Helping achieve the goals of a governance plan is yet another reason for archiving SharePoint content. "Archiving old sites that are no longer used -- this is key, as it's important to either delete or archive content that's no longer relevant," O'Connor said.

Easily retrieving that content is important as well. "You may have a project team site that was used for a project and that project is over, but in a year or two a similar project may pop up again and the project manager or team members may want to go back and restore that archived site to follow the best practices or lessons learned from that previous project," O'Connor said.

Archiving is a basic best practice in records management, but there's an even more compelling reason for some organizations. "Archiving is about compliance," said Ron Charity, a SharePoint product manager who has worked with SharePoint since 2001 and focuses on governance, information architecture, technical architecture, and operations. Compliance with industry or governmental regulations is essential for many, if not most, organizations, especially in the United States, which is home to the largest percentage of the world's lawsuits. Compliance and auditing capabilities go hand in hand with archiving. As O'Connor explained, "You can restore an archive to a site or SharePoint instance and make that data available to auditors and e-discovery activities without affecting the live SharePoint farm."

But SharePoint 2010 has the ability to declare records in place, so why would you need a third-party archiving solution? For one thing, Charity said, many organizations need a compliant archival engine (e.g., compliant with US Department of Defense -- DoD -- requirements). Another reason, he said, is that "enterprise records management systems scale much better due to N-Tier architecture and use of the file system for items and SQL Server for logic." Additionally, you can't beat the convenience of certain third-party products' features. "When archived data is disposed of, client systems issue certificates for legal purposes," Charity said.

What should you look for in a SharePoint archiving solution? Seamless integration with SharePoint is obvious, and vendors accomplish this goal in different ways. For example, many solutions stub the item in SharePoint and move it to the archive, whereas some solutions integrate with SharePoint at the event-handler layer to capture items. Can end users search for and access archived content in SharePoint? They'd better be able to, unless you like training them on new solutions and procedures.

E-discovery capability is useful; as part of that, so is the ability to archive all content types and data in SharePoint. Also consider how the vendor packages a solution, whether as a suite or a standalone product (only your organization's needs should determine which option is best for you). Then there are things that you won't know until you try a tool: how flexible it is, how easy it is to use, and how responsive the customer service is.

The buyer's guide table shows a sampling of SharePoint archiving vendors and the particulars of their solutions. If you're still not sold on the need for archiving SharePoint content, read the AIIM blog "The Case for SharePoint Archiving." Another useful blog post on SharePoint archiving and what to look for in a SharePoint archiving solution is Geoff Evelyn's "SharePoint Archiving -- Defining a Way Forward."

SharePoint Consulting - Developing a SharePoint 2010 Steering Committee

Overview
Within an enterprise SharePoint 2010 deployment, a key best practice to ensure your organization’s long-term SharePoint’s success, is the creation of a SharePoint Steering committee and engaging and\or including your organizaton’s key business and technology leaders to this committee. The SharePoint Steering Committee is the overall governing body of Microsoft SharePoint that ensures the technology is implemented so that it will fit the business and functional needs of the organization for years to come as well as to ensure the decisions that are made will not affect future upgrades of the technology.

I have been working with my senior architecture team at EPC Group on a series of white papers to provide to the SharePoint community through our SharePoint Consulting efforts and lessons learned.

Define
First, determine who the key stakeholders are that should be involved in the SharePoint Steering committee. Initially, develop a somewhat generic forum to discuss the phase 1 and future phase 2 (phase 3, phase 4, etc.) issues as the committee will learn over time how best to work together and will identify internal committee roles that will work best within the organization. Typically, these are Business Leaders, IT Managers, Key Technology Stakeholders, Legal, and Records Management owners, etc.

EducateIs is key that the SharePoint Services Team demo to the SharePoint Steering Committee any existing solutions that have been created in phase 1 and discuss the types of requests that are coming in to the SharePoint Services Team to help the Steering Committee understand the overall scale of the SharePoint, its growth and the types of business units within the organization making the requests. Ongoing demos should continue to be demoed to the SharePoint Steering Committee to reflect any updates or new projects.

SharePoint 2010 Steering Committee Best Practices
The SharePoint Steering committee is comprised of key stakeholders which oversees the strategic service direction and provides policy guidance.

The SharePoint Steering Committee will be comprised of a number of roles through the organization including the SharePoint Services Team Senior Management and SharePoint Stakeholders. SharePoint Stakeholders are defined as those in the business units which rely on the SharePoint Services as a part of their business operation. The committee will meet regularly with defined success criteria and measurable goals based on project definition, design and timeline.

The SharePoint Steering Committee should meet regularly to revisit structure, responsibilities and membership to ensure maximum effectiveness as well as potential scope changes for the organization to address changes in business conditions and technology.

The role of the SharePoint Steering Committee will be to:

•Aligning SharePoint initiatives to overall business goals.
•Set strategic and functional guidance to the SharePoint Platform \ Service(s) Team.
•Continually assess SharePoint project viability.
•Determine corporate standards.
•Approve all governance, standards and policies.
Note: With large enterprise organizations, other business units or subsidiaries worldwide may adopt some of their own regional governance policies (i.e. development, etc.) and the SharePoint Steering Committee will be responsible for taking these local considerations into the overall SharePoint 2010 Governance to ensure SharePoint governance stays up-to-date and relevant.

•Approve content publishing policies and assigning departmental and functional ownership.
•Approve SharePoint branding/usability/look and feel.
•Approve changes to the SharePoint Governance Document.
•Review any 3rd party SharePoint Software Vendor purchase requests to ensure that any large licensing purchases are taken into consideration at the enterprise level.
•Ensure the SharePoint training strategies continue to fit the needs of the organization.
Roles

An overview of Best Practices responsibilities for the an organization’s SharePoint Steering Committee are as follows:

Roles and Their Responsibilities

SharePoint Steering Committee Chair PersonResponsible for Chairing the SharePoint Steering Committee and owning sign-offs and casting the overall vote or decision should any impasse occur.

SharePoint Platform or Services OwnerThe overall platform or service owner of SharePoint who is responsible for all SharePoint Product and Technology Efforts. Leads the SharePoint Steering Committee meetings and is the manager of the SharePoint Services Team.

SharePoint Services Team Manager
The manager of the SharePoint Services team who is responsible for managing the day-to-day activities of the SharePoint Services team and delegating the incoming requests coming into the team from the different business units.

Records Management Representative
A key stakeholder for Records Management within the organization and ensures the technology and business decisions being made for the SharePoint System continue to follow the records management standards within the organization.

Development Team(s) Representative
A key stakeholder or manager representing the SharePoint development teams and providing input on the continued development and how best the custom SharePoint Solutions should be managed and added into the SharePoint platform (i.e. continuing the development of a SharePoint as a Service Concept I have written about in the past).

SharePoint Training Representative
A key stakeholder from training that will continue to monitor the ongoing activities of the SharePoint 2010 initiative while continuing to deliver training to the different audiences to meet the ongoing and possible changing needs and requirements of the SharePoint user base within the organization.

Help Desk or Service Desk Representative
A key stakeholder from your organization’s help desk \ service desk or I.T. support staff that will monitor the activities of SharePoint and report back to the committee on metrics regarding support calls, possible resolutions to reoccurring issues, and ensure they continue to be properly trained and proactive regarding the overall SharePoint Services within the organization.


SharePoint Governance, as we all know is one of the major keys to any organization's SharePoint long-term success, and implementing a SharePoint 2010 Steering Committee is something that myself and my team at EPC Group.net have helped to establish within orgnaizations and its something that is overlooked in at least 80% of enterprise SharePoint implementations.