Roadmap for Success: Key Questions for an Enterprise Collaboration Roadmap

(Note: This is a guest post by Tahoe Partners Director of Enterprise Collaboration David Sidwell) “If you don't know where you are going, you'll end up someplace else.” Yogi Berra may not have been talking about an enterprise collaboration environment when he said this, but it’s a key tenet of an enterprise collaboration roadmap all the same. What is your company’s vision and strategy for enterprise collaboration? How are you going to get there? And will there be a positive return on investment (ROI) when you arrive? Drawing the Map A solid enterprise collaboration strategy consists of three parts:

1. Establishing a baseline for the current collaboration environment
2. Identifying critical future goals
3. Drafting a plan for the initiatives required to move towards that future state

Before you know where you’re going, you have to know where you are right now. Here are some key questions to help you figure it out:

• Application Usage. How are current tools used for collaboration, and how could they be used?
• Communication and Change Management. How can we communicate collaboration opportunities to drive adoption?
• Content. What types of content are created, shared, and consumed?
• Development, Maintenance, and Support. How are collaborative solutions developed and supported?
• Governance. What people, processes, and technologies are in place to manage the set-up and growth of the collaboration environment? Do we need to look to new technologies or processes to establish good governance?
• Tools. What tools exist to automate the administration and governance of the collaboration environment? What is the appropriate timing for installing these tools?
• Infrastructure. Is the current infrastructure adequate for the desired growth, and if not, what infrastructure is needed?
• Search. How do people find important content scattered across the organization?
• Social. Can our employees easily share what they are working on, and tune in to what others are doing? Do our social tools match the expectations of our workforce – especially Millennials?
• Usability and User Experience. How can adoption and usage be maximized by providing a user-centered experience?
• Return on Investment. How can you estimate ROI for your collaboration efforts?

The answers – and the future goals – are different for every organization, but some industry and practical best practices are often the same, from governance, to team size and structure, to infrastructure and platform (such as SharePoint) knowledge. With an enterprise collaboration roadmap in place, you have a solid base to begin executing the high-priority initiatives that drive adoption and ROI. You might opt to focus on governance, increasing adoption through an intranet redesign, or the creation/upgrade/stabilization of the infrastructure. Whatever your ultimate goal, the first step in figuring out where you’re heading is asking the key questions that tell you where you are. Want to learn more about how we create enterprise collaboration roadmaps that drive adoption and ROI? Join us at SPTechCon on Wednesday, September 17 in Boston, MA for our session “Roadmap to Success: Increasing Adoption and ROI with a SharePoint Roadmap”. We’ll take a closer look at the key components of a SharePoint Roadmap, and share ideas for initiatives that companies can undertake today to head towards their future vision.