"we need a portal..."

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Sharon Richardson Joining Dots joiningdots.com BUS308 “We need a portal”

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Presented at the International SharePoint Conference 2012 held in London. Part of the business track, exploring approaches to SharePoint projects. In this case, starting from the business statement 'We need a portal...' The session looks at understanding why and how to approach building one.

TRANSCRIPT

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Sharon Richardson

Joining Dots

joiningdots.com

@joiningdots

BUS308

“We need a portal”

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Slideshare Notes

This presentation was delivered at the International SharePoint Conference held in London during April 2012

The session was exploring the project scenario that starts with ‘We need a portal’ but little else in terms of defined business requirements. A fictional company ‘Fizz Oil’ was used as a case study to frame activities

Slides have been modified to fit Slideshare formatting restrictions (sadly, means losing some useful animations) and some notes have been added due to the absence of a presenter

More notes are available in a corresponding blog post http://www.joiningdots.com/blog/2012/08/do-you-need-a-portal/

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“…Why?”

To improve decisions and actions

Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions

By Gary KleinPublished 1998

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“…Why?”

To improve decisions and actions

Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions

By Gary KleinPublished 1998

Notes:

Helps to first consider what decisions or actions could be improved and how – answer should be about more than just implementing technologies

Gary Klein’s book is highly recommended. For lighter reading, try Malcolm Gladwell’s ‘Blink’ (references Sources of Power)

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What is a portal?

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A web portal is a web site thatbrings together informationfrom diverse sources in a

unified way

Source: Wikipedia

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Portal or Platform?

Portal = aggregate multiple sources of

information for a unified purpose

Platform = framework with standard

features and services to build solutions

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Portal or Platform?

Portal = aggregate multiple sources of

information for a unified purpose

Platform = framework with standard

features and services to build solutions

Notes:

Clarify terminology. People often say ‘Portal’ when what they really want is a platform, that may have a portal-like home page as the starting point but is tasked with delivering much more than the unified presentation of diverse sources of information…

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Types of Portal

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Information Data

SearchPeople

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Information

Communications-drivenUnstructured contentManual (& formal) publishing

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DataProcess-drivenStructured contentAutomatic updates

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SearchActivity-drivenMixed content sourcesSeeking answers

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PeopleContact-drivenConversations and linksMaking connections

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How hard can that be?

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Imp

ort

an

ce

Practicality

Priorities?

News

Dashboards

Search

Directory

Compliance

‘Know How’

Intranet

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Imp

ort

an

ce

Practicality

Priorities?

News

Dashboards

Search

Directory

Compliance

‘Know How’

Intranet

Notes:

The main priorities are always requirements that are of high importance to the business. The amount of resources they will need to implement depends on how practical the requirements are.

If the focus is on ‘low hanging fruit’ – low importance and high practicality (easy to implement) – the project has a weak business case and probably lacks executive sponsorship.

Beware insufficient resources to achieve desired outcomes.

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IN

Value?OUT

Miracleoccurs

“Good work! … but I think we need just a little more detail right here”

Resources?

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EDRMS

KMSystem

CRMWebSite

WebSite

WebSite

ERPBespoke

DB

BespokeDB

FileShare File

Share

Where’s the content?

CRM

EDRMS

ERPFile

Share

BespokeDB

KMSystem

Access Standards Quality

WebSite

Connectivity, Bandwidth, Ownership

Notes:

Diverse sources of information. Often multiple instances, duplication and varying lifecycle management…

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Where’s the content going?

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Where are the users?

Location Language Culture

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What about the future?

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Online

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Process Access

Anonymous Limited public contentRead-only

Create your own account

All ‘public’ contentLogin to participate/contribute

Request an account

Role defines access to ‘private’ dataCustomer, Partner, Employee

Online Identity When the Intranet goes online…

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Mobile

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Portal vs Apps

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Where do we start?...

Case study: Fizz Oil

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Business Goals

• Improve accuracy of exploration assessment

• Timely access to information for all

• Raise standards through shared experience, knowledge and working practices

• Integrate complianceNotes:

Beware bland requirements – drill down into specific business needs as much as possible

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Challenges

Three companies in one

• Competing business priorities

• Multiple systems and content sources

• Different cultures, distributed workforce

Conflicting business goals

• Maintain Compliance vs Share Knowledge

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“We need a portal”

Target priorities• Exploration Assessment• Social Network

Business Requirements• Remote access (increasingly mobile)• Real-time updates

Technical Scope• Central vs Distributed vs Cloud

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Is it Feasible?

Personas

Scenarios

ResourceConstraints

ConceptualModel

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Personas & Scenarios

FIO Petroleum geologist based in the Antarctic. Leading prospecting team for FIZZ

Zenith Geophysicist based in the Arctic and specialising in mitigation of natural hazards

FIZZ in bidding war to acquire rights to land in a location of high seismic activity

Prospecting team need to evaluate and make final offer…within 48 hours

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Personas & Scenarios

FIO Petroleum geologist based in the Antarctic. Leading prospecting team for FIZZ

Zenith Geophysicist based in the Arctic and specialising in mitigation of natural hazards

FIZZ in bidding war to acquire rights to land in a location of high seismic activity

Prospecting team need to evaluate and make final offer…within 48 hours

Notes:

Personas help frame requirements – prioritising what matters, targeting business benefits, highlighting potential roadblocks - it’s never just about technology. Stories trump statistics for achieving project buy-in

Ideally, base on real roles within the organisation and actual scenarios that could be improved with better uses of technology

In this example – two companies have merged and there is a need to break down ‘in-crowds’ in each company to share knowledge – how to encourage people to seek expertise outside their traditional network of contacts

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Conceptual Model (Simplified)‘as is’ ‘to be’

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Conceptual Model (Simplified)‘as is’ ‘to be’Notes:

Visualise the current scenario ‘as is’ and the desired improvement ‘to be’ using the personas

This is a highly simplified model to demonstrate. Current system – two organisations are functioning indepedently and there is no single social network or corporate directory. The Blue team know an independent expert (Mr Yellow) who could be pivotal to a major business deal being managed by the Red team.

By creating a single enterprise social network, it becomes easier to find people across different teams with shared expertise and the network of contacts spreads beyond organisational walls.

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What’s the alternative?

Next Steps• Wireframes• Process Flows

(Interaction)• Technical

Specification• Prototype?vs

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What’s the alternative?

Next Steps• Wireframes• Process Flows

(Interaction)• Technical

Specification• Prototype?vs

Notes:

The sanity check – is the proposed ‘to be’ scenario feasible. In this example, the risk is that people will fall back on traditional and comfortable habits – email trails and individual folders of documents versus a social network and centralised knowledge repository. Care needs to be taken to balance competing requirement.

And if it looks feasible, beware devil in the details. The next steps are to flush them out through wireframes and more detailed process flows that lead to defined requirements and a technical specification.

Still unsure, consider prototyping and proof of concepts before committing full resources.

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Wrap-up

When the business says ‘We need a portal’…

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“We need a portal”

1. Define the purpose (portal ≠ platform)

2. Identify business priorities/commitment

3. Consider future demands and trends

4. Check feasibility of the concept

5. Confirm resource constraints

6. “We need a stakeholder”

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Sharon [email protected]@joiningdots