SharePoint Vision & Goals
It is important for the organization to continue to share its vision and goals for SharePoint. This document
contains the current SharePoint vision statement and key goals that are intended for this phase of the
implementation.
Previous phases and their goals can also be found within this document along with how they were
achieved.
Vision Statement
What follows is the organizations vision statement for SharePoint.
“The Portal provides an environment where, in one organized, intuitive and searchable location
employees will find the systems, tools, information and collaboration areas that they need. From
any internet-connected computer, employees will be able to realize greater efficiency accessing
important business systems, people information, company forms, news, benefits summaries,
calendars and other company information. The portal will provide tools for teams to collaborate
and share documents, timelines, status reports and other communication, thus providing
additional benefit to our customers, and our industry partners in a secure and efficient way.”
Enterprise Goals:
What follows are the key enterprise goals as they relate to what SharePoint will and won’t be used to
support.
SharePoint Will Be:

Utilized by Business Users to develop and implement business solutions that use technology
without IT’s direct involvement.

Utilized by IT to develop and implement more advanced technical solutions through a unified
application delivery platform.

The primary repository for document sharing, collaboration, and communication.

The primary location for simple workflow/business process automation.

The employee Portal and communication center for internal corporate communications.

The primary project issue tracking system with the support of Project Server.
SharePoint Will Not Be:

The repository for any XYZ documents and processes.

The platform used for customer relationship management.

The learning management system used by our organization.

Utilized as an asset management system.

The ticket tracking system for our operational issues.

The work order management system used by our organization.
2011 Primary Goals:
The primary goals identified during the 2011 phase of the SharePoint implementation are to:
1. Improve Communication: Implement a Portal in SharePoint 2010 in order to improve
communication between the organizations departments, and employees.
2. Foster Collaboration: Implement a structure within SharePoint to enable the sharing and
collaboration of files and documents through SharePoint’s built-in functionality in order to move
away from reliance on file shares.
3. Connect Employees: Improve the ability for employees to find each other and improve team
collaboration using SharePoint’s built-in people search capabilities.
4. Improve Productivity: Provide greater efficiency to employees by simplifying access to
important business systems.
Goal # 1 – Improve Communication: Implement a Portal in SharePoint 2010 in order to improve
communication between the organizations departments, and employees.
Currently the organization does not have a Portal. In order to more effectively share, maintain, and
organize information a Portal will be created that should enable corporate, department, and initiative
communication to be shared across the organization. This communication will include key documents,
announcements, events, and resources for employees.
Goal # 2 – Foster Collaboration: Implement a structure within SharePoint to enable the sharing and
collaboration of files and documents through SharePoint’s built-in functionality in order to move away from
reliance on file shares.
An item that was identified during initial meetings was the desire to implement a collaboration solution
using SharePoint’s built-in functionality. Typically, users email documents back and forth, rely on file
shares, or use Exchange public folders for collaboration. This generally makes it difficult for users to
keep track of the most current version of the document, and has resulted in extremely large unmanaged
file shares. A single platform for storing and managing documents was identified as a need for the
organization, and setting up a dedicated area for this type of collaboration will improve users’ abilities to
work together on documents and share ideas. Part of the initial Portal will be identifying areas that are
more “collaborative” in nature and ensure these are in a dedicated area within the SharePoint
architecture.
Goal #3 – Connect Employees: Improve the ability for employees to find each other and improve team
collaboration using SharePoint’s built-in people search capabilities.
One of the highly requested items within the organization is a way to effectively connect with, contact, or
get in touch with other employees. Moving beyond just a phone listing it’s the organizations goal to
provide additional ways for people to find one another and the expertise they need in order to accomplish
their work.
Goal #4 – Improve Productivity: Provide greater efficiency to employees by simplifying access to important
business systems.
Keeping track of and accessing the many systems within [Company] can be a challenge for employees.
To improve productivity resource pages and easy access links will be created and organized throughout
the Portal ensuring that employees will never have trouble finding the right [Company] system again.
2012 Primary Goals:
These goals are still being determined but a few potential goals have been outlined to support future
discussions.
1. Unify Communication: Implement all [Company] Departments by the end of 2012 for a more
unified experience and to further improve communication between departments and employees.
2. Optimize Collaboration: Improve the sharing and collaboration of files and documents through
SharePoint’s built-in functionality in order to move away from reliance on file shares.
3. Accelerate Discovery: Provide the ability to search for and find relevant files and documents
using SharePoint’s built-in search capabilities both in and outside of SharePoint.
4. Encourage Engagement: Enable employees to share more personal information through their
profiles and the built in social features of SharePoint.
Goal # 2 – Optimize Collaboration: Improve the sharing and collaboration of files and documents through
SharePoint’s built-in functionality in order to move away from reliance on file shares.
While the implementation of the core collaboration platform and many team sites is a good start there are
still many things that can be done to further improve, foster, and simplify collaboration between teams in
[Company]. In addition to the basic Team Sites new templates for community sites, project sites, and
more will be defined and provided to [Company] Portal users.
Goal #3 – Accelerate Discovery: Improve the ability for employees to find each other and improve team
collaboration using SharePoint’s built-in people search capabilities.
Search was identified as an area that could be immediately improved upon. Part of the implementation of
SharePoint will be to configure its robust search capabilities in order to more quickly find relevant
documents and information. Further planning will include a strategy for “tagging” documents that are
imported into SharePoint to enhance search results as well as crawling the existing file shares (and
possibly Exchange public folders) so users are better able to find the information they are seeking in less
time.