I know I wont’ be able to blog every single day, but I want to make sure I capture these early days as first impressions are really important, and easily forgotten as you get “used” to things in a new organization. I spent my second day with J&J briefly sitting in on some Sharepoint training and then workign closely with the PM on this portal project to understand deliverables and where things are in the project delivery cycle.
I’ve come in right in the middle of a soft-launch of Sharepoint ‘07 - the second deployment of Sharepoint for this function, where the expectations are high that the ~1100 members of this global (and again, highly decentralized) function will easiliy start using the platform to work, communicate and collaborate. My role will be to help drive that adoption, and as I start to synthesize all the pieces of this challenge, I’m identifying some early challenges (I’m sure this list will grow!):
1. Compatibility of platform and O/S: The nicer features of Sharepoint, integrating seamlessly with the Office environment, will not all be fully realized due to the face that most of the team are on Windows 2000 still. The initial thinking was to push a 2007 client to some early adopters, but I’m worried about having a few odd users on a different platform trying to communicate and collaborate with the rest of their team still on ‘07 - I can forsee annoying glitches and conflicts in this area - but I have to find out more.
2. Design and I/A: Sharepoint promises to empower people to drive their own spaces online - but you still need to think through the Information Architecture of the site, especially if the expectation is that collaboration can happen around categories of work across organizational units. From a design perspective - the new design, outsourced to an agency, is graphic heavy and presents a new branded look and feel for the function. I’m still trying to find out if this is part of a planned vision for the functions brand and digital culture, or something the agency came up with as a new take.
3. Legal concerns: J&J has some real concerns about the control of content online - so there is a hold on any blogging or wikis while they review policy for this. From experience with other companies going through the same thing - even highly regulated organizations (such as Deloitte, and BP), I know that ultimately there can be a reasonable solution to managing legal concerns while allowing self-service publishing. I’m hoping to help be a part of that conversation to get to a resolution on this matter soon, so we can move forward.
More to come! It’s great to be back at work full-time.
