Why project governance? Sei-IS always pride itself on supporting the customer and this is a key consideration as the project goes live. Recently we completed a project which is essence is a single site built on the SharePoint 2010 platform that in effect is a 'Super' meeting workspace. The idea is that it will manage the key elements of a meeting (dah!) which are all based on documents, different kinds of documents but documents none the less.
So such a simple site requires some simple project governance… who do I speak to when I need help, who takes responsibility when it goes wrong, what availability is the business looking for and 20 other questions…. 20 why 20 you are asking… well I don't know but there must be 20 so what are they….
20 Project Governance Questions
1. Point of Contact when it goes wrong: Is it the same team or person for the general User and the Approvers of the site or different?
2. What are the roles on the site and how does this affect the security matrix?
3. Does the site have a priority within the normal business process?
4. Who owners the site and what are their expectations?
5. Do they understand their responsibility as owners?
6. Who will use the site?
7. Do they need help to use the site and how do they get to the help sheets?
8. Who is running and booking the training courses?
9. Will usage require any sort of business change?
10. Which System Admin is responsible for the server?
11. What are they responsible for, Updates, Upgrades or just Day to Day availability?
12. Who approves the system being taken out of service?
13. Does the site support other languages?
14. Who are the audience who require this site?
15. Is 24/7 access required?
16. Is the usage tied into a business process that might change?
17. Is the site dependable on specific information, or external connections?
18. Does it require a contact list of partners or services supporting the key deliverable?
19. What is the expected role of user?
Oh well fell short by one question… but I am sure you can find the 20th and if not then think about defining what the site is supposed to do because none of these questions answer that questions…
20. What functionality does the site deliver
Project Governance Questions
So there you go 20 questions that need to be answered for each and every SharePoint (or other) site that you unleash into the business. But the reality is that you will each have another 5 questions that you normally ask and want answering before it is released to the world such as: Do we have a Project Governance Diagram? Project Governance Template? Project Governance Document? or have we defined Project Governance Roles, even to What Project Governance Framework Are We Using? I could go on…
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Next Steps:
If you would like help with project governance, SharePoint projects, of an expert to talk to and make sure you're asking the right questions then please contact me, I'll be glad to help:
[button link="/contact/" color="green"]Call Steve on: +32 54 51 84 46 or CLICK HERE>[/button]
If you have other questions in addition to the ones I've listed here then please let us know in the comments below.
Many thanks
