Takeaways & Thoughts: KMWorld Webinar on SharePoint Governance

Post Date: 11/18/2011
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This week, I had the opportunity to join a roundtable discussion moderated by industry publication KMWorld magazine, Governing Information in the Age of SharePoint. I really enjoyed having a chance to chat with colleagues and really dig into determining where SharePoint and information governance converge, as well as some practical tips to help get end-users on their way. To view the archived webcast, please click here (free registration required).

The three key takeaways from the discussion where: 1. Even though we’re focusing on Information Governance, it’s very important to also consider the other key governance areas outlined by Ant Clay in his post on SharePoint Governance, especially IT assurance (SLAs, Disaster Recovery planning, etc.) when planning for information access. 2. Information governance offers a spectrum for how tightly or loosely managed content can be. Some industries don’t have a choice for certain information types, but you’ll have to plan up front for what types of content merit the different levels of governance that you’re planning to support. Typically, the level of governance for a particular site, for instance, is proportionate to the size of the audience you’re targeting (e.g. MySites are loosely governed, where public websites have much more strict policies and controls). 3. A tip: Have content owners fill out an assessment for what’s most important for their content between availability (How users get to it and where is it located?), access (Who has access and how secure is it?), and redundancy (Does there need to be a single version of the truth or not?). This will help determine your content lifecycle management plan, including steps that should be taken when introducing new content; managing existing content; and remediating stale, inactive, or outdated content. The whole concept of governance is a hot one – virtually everywhere you go in the SharePoint world today, someone somewhere is talking about governance. And everyone has a different idea of what governance is (if you don’t believe me, check out some videos we’ve taken at a few recent industry conferences asking people that very question). Regardless of the theory, what we want to do is allow you to implement and enforce those policies throughout your enterprise. That is the very basis of SharePoint MVP and AvePoint Enterprise Trainer & Evangelist Randy Williams’ white paper on governance, as well as our upcoming product Governance Automation. What are the biggest pain points you’re seeing in terms of SharePoint governance today? ​

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