There is no “one size fits all” model for SharePoint governance; it’s very important to target the governance model for both the type of site (publishing versus collaboration) and the “reach” (enterprise-wide versus team). However, even for sites where the audience of the site is a small team, a little bit of governance goes a long way. Balance is the key word for SharePoint team site governance. Too much governance and teams will find work-arounds. Too little governance and your users will spend far too much time reinventing the wheel.
How much governance is appropriate for team sites? Here are some ideas to consider.
If you have a rigid application of standards for site layouts and metadata, etc. in your team sites, you run the risk of teams bailing on SharePoint entirely or spending all kinds of time figuring out how to “game” the system with “fake” metadata and other work-arounds. However, with no governance, your organization is at risk of lost productivity while each team independently figures out the best way to organize their content and you get fewer opportunities to communicate, not to mention enforce, best practices. I’ve watched in frustration as organizations that have few or no governance standards for team sites end up re-inventing the wheel over and over again for each new project – where the person establishing the team site spends a lot of totally wasted time trying to come up with the best possible design strategy for their site – at least the best possible strategy in their opinion. Moreover, since it’s inevitable that an individual will be a member of more than one team, you can end up with an enormous amount of time wasted trying to figure out how each different team has chosen to organize their content when you go from one project site to another. It’s as bad as the gazillion different models that teams have for their folder hierarchies on file shares and if you’ve ever had to “take over” a folder structure that you didn’t come up with on your own, you will totally know what I mean.
I think the answer is a collection (small number, fewer than 5 or so) of model site designs that teams with different purposes can use as a template for their site design and metadata structure. The “out of the box” templates that come with MOSS 2007 are a good start, but they are never exactly what your organization will need. There should be common features in each design template – Announcements in the same place (I usually like upper left), Site Contacts (who is the sponsor and “steward” of the site) clearly identified on the home page (I usually like lower left or at the bottom of the page), and perhaps a minimal amount of enterprise metadata in document libraries. The emphasis here is on the word minimal; I’m all for consistency – as in, if you classify your content by Product then you need to use a consistent list of products. But, you should think carefully about the outcomes that you need to achieve before mandating metadata in sites with a very narrow “reach” or short life span. The benefits of consistent site models are huge. It’s easier to ensure that best practices are followed or even that people just know about them. It speeds up the instantiation of new projects – no fussing about how we want our team site to look, we just get going on the work. It helps users who work on more than one project spend their time on the project and not trying to figure out where information “lives” on the team site. And of course, it prevents “team site anarchy.”
I don’t think there are any downsides to having a governance model for team sites, but that doesn’t mean the models stay the same forever. I definitely don’t want to advocate stifling innovation – I just think it’s a good idea to try to prevent the tendency towards “design run amuck” that I see over and over again in organizations that don’t apply governance to their team sites. I get just as frustrated at organizations that have too much governance on team sites. Again, balance is the key word. One team may figure out how to build a better mousetrap and we need to let them do that – within reason and where it makes good business sense. I think it’s essential that large organizations with many SharePoint users establish a “Power User” Community of Practice so that people can share good ideas and get the best of them incorporated into future site models. The governance plan is not a “build it and forget it” approach – it has to live and breathe and needs to have a “parent” who keeps it relevant but there should still be some consistent standards.
Basically, I call this the “get over it” approach to team site design. While you may get folks who just love the idea that they can easily choose the pink theme for their site and put fancy animated graphics on their sites, the goal is to facilitate getting work done effectively. Given today’s economic crisis and the very real possibility that there will be fewer people around to do the same or more work, in the scheme of things, giving up a little flexibility in an effort to improve productivity is a no-brainer.
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