Are you or your client SharePoint self-centered?

By Peter Serzo

June 12, 2012 —  (Page 1 of 2)
If you have a teenager, then you already know what it is like to have SharePoint in your organization. Teenagers represent potential, hope and drama. We could delve into all of these characteristics and find easy comparisons when implementing or supporting SharePoint in an organization.

The one characteristic that many (though not all) teenagers have is the belief that the world revolves around them. For those of us who are parents, we see this and must cope with it while helping our child grow into a contributing member of society. When implementing and supporting SharePoint, we must do the same.

How to put an end to SharePoint self-centeredness? One way is to realize that this is not your client's problem. It is your problem as the implementer of the technology. You may not even realize that you set up the self-centeredness.

I have been creating software for 20 years now, the last 10 mostly with SharePoint. I can definitely say that SharePoint is blamed for many things. Some expressions that I have heard over and over through the years:

"I can't log in. It's SharePoint's fault."

"SharePoint is not user-friendly."

"I can't find anything in SharePoint."

These are all valid points to the client. SharePoint's strength and weakness is that is that it does so much and can touch so much. On top of this, just like any proud doting parent, you have Microsoft touting this software as the very manna from Heaven. It's no wonder that we become SharePoint self-centered.

What this means is that you have to be smarter when talking SharePoint. Here are a few points that will help:

1. SharePoint branding. It is not just branding, it is usability. A majority of SharePoint users I've encountered don't like it because usability was not taken into account. This is not SharePoint's fault. Don't blame the ribbon because a user cannot see how to add documents to a library.

2. Security. I love it when users complain about this, and then you ask them about Active Directory, trusts, forests, etc. The point is SharePoint's security is innately tied to a much bigger infrastructure, and this should be discussed up front.

3. Technical folks. Just because I do application development does not mean I can come over to my uncle's house and fix his computer hardware. The line from the great Bill Murray movie “Groundhog Day” comes to mind. Bill is asked how he got so good at piano, and he says, "My Dad was a piano mover so..."

So it is with SharePoint and technical folks. There are disciplines, and it is your job to educate your clients—your users—on this subject. Just because you "code" in SharePoint (a.k.a. use SharePoint Designer) does not mean you are able to write jQuery client object model code.


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