Using SharePoint to re-engineer your business processes and trim costs

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Using SharePoint to re-engineer your business
processes and trim costs

• A Best Buy Case Study

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Defining the parameters

• Today youll get
• Background on my function/role
• A detailed look at the SharePoint implementation
  for BestBuy.com
• Overview of benefits achieved and saved
• Details on how we built our solutionsincluding
  total development hours
• Overview of roadblocks we encountered along the
  way
• Overview of our SharePoint development process
• An information architecture perspective
• You wont get
• Answers from a system engineer or a MOSS system
  administrator

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My personal bias

• Businesses shouldnt be run via spreadsheets
  stored on shared drives
• Knowledge doesnt exist unless you have an
  information retrieval strategy
• Left to their own devices, well-intentioned
  people will live in information chaos
• My job isnt about giving users what they want.
  Its about listening and figuring out what they
  really need
• SharePoint is great at what it can dobut if I
  find something better, Im jumping ship

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Background

• Current role dotcom Operations
• Built new role for Collaboration Management
• Role of SharePoint in BBY enterprise
• Personal history
• Technical writing
• Content Management System implementation
  support
• Knowledge management
• Information architecture
• Corporate librarian
• Code-free.

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Collaboration management

• Design, implement support collaborative toolset
• Act as liaison between dotcom and
  enterprise-level social networking teams
• Act as a SharePoint consultant for other BBY
  teams
• Advocate for new technologies new integration
  paths
• Current team members
• Sarah Haase (manager)

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What are our key goals?

• Enable quick/easy information sharing
• Leverage all our knowledge assetsregardless of
  job title or role
• Use technology to automate manual tasks, thereby
  freeing up resources to work on value-add tasks
• Optimize information retrieval
• Provide secure systems

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What is Collaborations value?

• Process optimization
• Eliminate redundant work processes
• Store/use data efficiently
• Build automated workflow processes
• Reduce dependency on email
• Enable better information retrieval
• Provide just-in-time (JIT) information
• Tailor data views to appropriate audiences
• Create dashboards that display overall
  site/project/process health

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What is Collaborations value?

• Information architecture
• Focus on obtaining structured data
• Build taxonomies for effective information
  storage/retrieval
• Tie dotcom initiatives to enterprise-level social
  networking tools

• Information sharing
• Build tools that people want to use
• Evangelize social networking tools(both internal
  external)

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Collaborations key toolset

• The Brain
• Wiki knowledge base
• Confluence, powered by Atlassian
• 3,300 articles
• 100 authors
• Key features
• Subject-based taxonomy
• Boolean searching
• Standardized authoring templates
• Ability to comment on all articles
• Ability to lock/secure articles
• Ability to add folksonomy labels
• SOPs for article reviews/updates
• Parking lot

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Collaborations key toolset

• JIRA
• Ops issue tracking/ticketing system
• Powered by Atlassian
• Throughput 150 tickets/week
• Key features
• Automated filtering
• Customizable metadata fields
• Ability to assign issues
• Ability to comment on issues and log time worked

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Collaborations key toolset

• SharePoint
• MOSS 2007
• Accenture provides farm administration
• Additional tools used
• Most employees/contractors still on Office 2003
• InfoPath 2003
• SharePoint Designer 2007
• Dotcoms site collection born August, 2007
• Annual ROI 350,000/year and counting
• 36 sites up and running to date
• Controlled development/release strategy

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SharePoint development process

• All requests go through Collaboration
• All requests same process
• Business owner required
• All projects tracked in SharePoint
• Weekly code reviews held for development team
• Promotes development best-practices
• Provides weekly training for all team members
• Provides cross-training for all team members who
  will be supporting sites later on
• Enables management to assess development capacity
• Case studies built for all trackable projects

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SharePoint development process

• Development stages
• Stage 1 (Initial request received)
• Stage 2 (Storyboarding in process)
• Stage 3 (Development in process)
• Stage 4 (Iterative review)
• Stage 5 (Launched)
• On hold (Waiting on requestor)
• Priority level

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SharePoint development process

• Key steps in the storyboarding/design process
• Ask about their vision for the future
• Find out what business need(s) theyre trying to
  solve
• Get details on their current work process
• Highlights
• Pain points
• Bottlenecks
• Get a wish list of things they dream about
• Provide a demo of similar functionality already
  launched in SharePoint
• Connect them with business owners that are up and
  running
• Revisit the wish list
• Present a new vision for their future (formal
  or informal)
• Document requirements
• Get management sign-off
• Move on to development

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Observational view SharePoint at work
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Site collection overview

• Initial design flat
• Hierarchical taxonomy put in place 6 months later
• BestBuy.com site
• Teams (22 sites)
• Projects (8 sites)
• Functions/Roles (5 sites)
• User interface design heavy on the SharePoint
  blue
• Project/team dashboards
• Working queues
• Restrictive security model
• Most sites break inheritance
• Standard permission groups used - Members,
  Visitors, Owners
• Very few Designers
• Restrictive overrides where necessary

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Site collection taxonomy
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Case Study 1 Manning the box

• Need
• Online Tools was using ¾ of an FTE to manually
  transfer emailed support requests to the JIRA
  online ticketing system
• Solution
• Built a web-based form to capture structured data
  on issues
• Auto-generated issues in the JIRA ticketing
  system
• Benefits
• Tickets created automatically within 1 minute
• Requestors get to set their own priority levels
• Requestors auto-notified that their request has
  been logged
• Re-allocated 30 hrs/week to providing support
• Total savings 1,500/week and 78,000/year

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Case Study 1 Manning the box

• Demo!
• Collaboration portal
• JIRA dashboard
• SharePoint homepage

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Case Study 1 Manning the box
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Case Study 1 Manning the box
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Case Study 1 Manning the box

• Key design elements
• Multiple form entry points
• Full trust certificate applied to InfoPath form
• Stalker feature
• Hidden required fields
• SharePoint Designer workflow sends automatic
  email notification to issue reporter
• SharePoint serves as a backup for all form
  content
• SharePoint stores document attachments (raising
  our size restriction from 1 MB to 50 MB) per
  issue
• All coding done in C
• Coding support outsourced after launch
• .NET Framework v2.0 required (and not standard)

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Case Study 1 Manning the box

• Tools used
• Microsoft InfoPath 2003
• MOSS 2007
• 1 form library
• 2 custom lists
• Business data connector
• KPI list
• Key Performance Indicators web part
• SharePoint Designer 2007
• Custom email workflow kicks off when a new item
  is created
• JIRA (enterprise edition, version 3.9.1)

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Case Study 1 Manning the box

• Time to develop
• Project length 5 months
• Outstanding factors
• Major delays with holiday
• Major roadblock JIRA web service
• 2 week beta test
• Staff/expertise needed
• 1 Microsoft developer 60 hours
• 1 Collaboration SME 150 hours
• 2 part-time form testers 40 hours

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Case Study 2 Weekly lockdown

• Need
• Content teams used multiple versions of a single
  Excel spreadsheet to submit, track assign key
  issues for Sunday turnovers
• Solution
• Moved data online to SharePoint
• Built an automated work queue. When team members
  log in, they see a list of tasks assigned to them
• Benefits
• No more work compiling sharing multiple
  spreadsheets
• Everyone can add/view issues simultaneously
• No more duplicate reporting of identical issues
• Cuts a half a day off the weekly lockdown process
• Total savings across Dotcom 13,867/month and
  166,400/year

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Case Study 2 Weekly lockdown

• Demo!
• Content team SharePoint site

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Case Study 2 Weekly lockdown
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Case Study 2 Weekly lockdown

• Key design elements
• Data stored online
• No more copying and pasting
• Everyone can work simultaneously
• No more duplicate issues reported
• Automated work queue
• Ability to assign issues to multiple people
• Conditional formatting
• Ability to save list as template
• Involuntary participation model
• No coding needed

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Case Study 2 Weekly lockdown

• Tools used
• MOSS 2007
• 1 custom list
• Current User Filter web part
• List view web part
• SharePoint Designer 2007
• 2 data view web parts
• Conditional formatting
• Time to develop
• Design/build-out for initial team 30 hours
• Build-out for additional teams 5 hours each
• Staff/expertise needed
• 1 Collaboration SME

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Case Study 2 Weekly lockdown

• User testimonials
• We love the Movies lockdown trackerits
  working really well. Its easy, interactive, and
  very collaborative. From the PM side, it saves us
  a lot of time just with not having to manage,
  compile and share out spreadsheets. Everyone has
  visibility to all the issues, not just theirs,
  and not one person has really had issues with
  managing the SharePoint site. Ive noticed that
  were locked probably half a day earlier just due
  to this.
• It helps to clarify what's going on, because
  everyone can comment on anyone's comment or
  questions. It's a way to sort of have a
  discussion with the other reviewers, rather than
  just having everyone blindly dump their comments
  onto the project manager, who then had to sort
  them out. I think that issues are cleared up more
  quickly now with everyone being able to see and
  respond.

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Decision time

• Go on to Case Study 3
• Skip ahead to what we've learned

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Case Study 3 Application testing

• Need
• Ops teams needed a good long-term strategy for
  testing in-house applications
• Solution
• Created template SharePoint site
• Built in a test case repository, test execution
  space, and project tracker
• Benefits
• No more time spent hunting for old test cases
• Complete list of test cases now available (they
  double as requirements)
• Enables BBY to hire outside testers perform
  full regression tests
• Automated test queues custom dashboards for
  testers and PMs
• Incorporates Google Charting API for quick
  reporting
• Estimated savings per application 30,000/year

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Case Study 3 Application testing
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Case Study 3 Application testing

• Demo!
• Testing SharePoint site

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Case Study 3 Application testing
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Case Study 3 Application testing

• Key design elements
• Multiple list design that incorporates a secure
  test case repository, test project tracker, and
  test execution area
• Bulk edit ASPX page that allows easy test case
  selection
• Create a multiple item form to expose editable
  field for all rows
• JavaScript function that powers the Select all
  checkbox
• Custom SharePoint Designer workflows that
  automate the test case migration process
• Current vs. archived test views in the test
  execution area
• Unique dashboard display for project managers

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Case Study 3 Application testing

• Tools used
• MOSS 2007
• 3 custom lists
• 1 document library
• 3 list view web parts
• SharePoint Designer 2007
• Custom ASPX page set up as a Multiple Item Form
• Custom JavaScript code that enables the Select
  all checkbox
• Custom workflow that copies test cases over for
  execution
• jQuery Google Charting API
• Almost no-code solution provided by End-User
  SharePoint

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Case Study 3 Application testing

• Time to develop
• Project length 3 months
• Outstanding factors
• Lower priority project
• Wait time for test case development and data
  standardization
• Research development time for me
• Staff/expertise needed
• 1 Microsoft support analyst 1 hour
• 1 Collaboration SME 120 hours
• 1 Application project manager 75 hours

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Summary What weve learned
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Key lessons learned (so far)

• Site design
• Users will always take the path of least
  resistance
• We cant afford to hand out open access
• Yes, SharePoint can be used as just an online
  file repository
• You have to force people through the information
  architecture process
• Savings add up quickly (so dont forget the
  little things)
• Marketing
• SharePoint evangelizes itselfonce you land a few
  key projects
• Its great to start at the grassroots levelbut
  dont forget the higher-ups
• Think outside your department. What kind of boat
  are you building?

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Key lessons learned (so far)

• Site collection administration
• You need a taxonomy
• You need a defined development process (or you
  risk getting buffeted by strong winds)
• You need a support COE
• Community
• Things are moving too fast to not plug in
• Blogs Twitter LinkedIn

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Questions

• Sarah HaaseCollaboration Manager at Best
  Buysarah.haase_at_bestbuy.comhttp//twitter.com/sar
  ahhaase

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Resources

• YouTube overviews of Web 2.0http//clifmims.com/b
  log/archives/28
• End-User SharePointhttp//www.endusersharepoint.c
  om/
• Top 101 SharePoint people to follow on
  Twitterhttp//www.sharepointjoel.com/Lists/Posts/
  Post.aspx?ID152
• Fortune article Web 2.0 is over. Welcome to
  Web 3.0http//money.cnn.com/2009/01/07/technolog
  y/hempel_threepointo.fortune/index.htm
• Jakob Nielsens report 10 Best Intranets of
  2009http//www.useit.com/alertbox/intranet_desig
  n.html \
• Twitter and the real-time webhttp//blogs.alianzo
  .com/socialnetworks/2009/01/14/twitter-and-the-rea
  l-time-web/
• Nick Grattans SharePoint Blog entry on creating
  bulk edit screenshttp//nickgrattan.wordpress.com
  /2008/05/13/bulk-editing-of-sharepoint-list-items/