Just because you have social enterprise features doesn’t mean people will use them. To boost SharePoint user adoption, these features must fill a need — usually a business need.
To be sure, there are some key steps to successful implementing a collaboration platform such as SharePoint, as Jeremy Thake outlines in an article on SharePoint Pro. But remember, there’s no benefit to implementing technology for technology’s sake. We recommend always starting by identifying the business outcomes you hope to achieve with the implementation.
Keep in mind that SharePoint communities and social features are very accessible, which can be a double-edged sword. The good news is that many people can quickly see and use these features. Remember, emailed conversations are only visible to those explicitly included, which can end up trapping information in silos.
More sophisticated collaboration platforms improve findability and increase the chances that people will get and share useful information. That’s great, but the bad news is that if the tools fail, they fail with a loud bang because they’re transparent and out in the open.
When it comes to SharePoint user adoption, the best ideas we’ve seen are centered on making usability as easy and effective as possible. In the end, strong needs create great collaboration while weak needs lead to empty sites.
At the same time, people need to know that the features exist before they look for content. For example, how would a user even know to look for a designing community if he doesn’t know that one exists? One way to raise awareness is to move discussions that start as email to the collaboration platform, Thake says.
Organizations also must find champions for their collaboration solutions. That will encourage more reluctant employees to participate. In some cases, using badges to recognize various types of engagement, such as responding to questions or creating original posts, will boost engagement. If content creation starts to take off, the use of hashtags or other means of categorizing content can help to keep things organized.
Finally, we believe it’s imperative to foster a safe and open environment. Anything that’s appropriate within the normal business parameters should be safe to communicate in the community without any fear of retribution. That’s the key to building trust and boosting SharePoint user adoption.
Source: SharePoint Pro, June 2013
