You know how you felt when you were a teenager and you may have heard at least once but probably several times not under our house. Recently, I had this same experience but it was not a flashback to my teenage years but during an IT Change Control Meeting. Eyes go wide with traditional Change Control Team members and methodologies when you educate on the functionality and flexibility of SharePoint. It is a fine balance to provide the user community access to the functionality of SharePoint yet protect the performance, reliability, security and content of the sites.
Most SDLC methodologies and change control practices are based on implementing an ERP like PeopleSoft, Oracle or SAP. Access to make changes to a panel or label is maintained within IT and follows the traditional gather requirements, create the design, build in test, actually test the change and gain approvals, then present to change control and finally move to production. In the world of SharePoint change can move much faster and your SharePoint business owner or site owner can easily update a site or sites by a few clicks right in production without ever impacting the site performance or user experience.
The good and bad of this is in most instances Business Owners and Site Owners are energized, excited and want the control to manage their site. One would say that it is an IT Leader’s hope to have an excited and take charge Business or Site Owner. And even better, SharePoint is an easily adaptable tool that can provide for this type of environment.
Enter the Seesaw effect: the balancing act that is necessary to ensure the stability of your SharePoint Environment yet provide the flexibility of ownership and control of your business owners and site owners need to drive the true value and benefits of SharePoint.
If you would like to talk, share your ideas or learn more, please email me at kruth@pointbridge.com.
