Sharepoint

The Project Leader as a Servant Leader

Published August 25, 2010 Uncategorized 1 Comment

“Traditional autocratic and hierarchical modes of leadership are slowly yielding to a newer model—one that attempts to simultaneously enhance the personal growth of workers and improve quality and caring through a combination of teamwork and community, personal involvement in decision making, and ethical and caring behavior … called servant-leadership.”

—Larry Spears, Reflections on Leadership

The project management world is changing and today’s project leader must raise the bar in both skill and character to succeed in delivering projects and building teams that produce value for the customer. One way to look at this change is to see the project leader as a servant leader . . . and do it in five steps.

Build on Strength: Allow each team member to contribute what he or she is best at. There are no weaknesses, just limitations that are not strengths—yet. This improves everyone’s performance and solidifies teams by aligning the strengths of many people.
Blaze the Trail: Turn stumbling blocks into stepping stones. Give them a fine reputation to live up to. These actions multiply the Serving Leader’s impact by activating tier after tier of leadership.
Raise the Bar: Establish high standards of performance. Build a culture of high performance.
Upend the Pyramid: Disregard conventional project management thinking. Put other people first. You are in charge to charge up others. Servant leaders put themselves at the bottom of the pyramid and unleash the energy, excitement, and talents of the team.
Run to Great Purpose: Hold out a big “reason why.” Strive to do the most possible good.

The Serving Leader avoids the common top-down hierarchical style by:

Emphasizing collaboration, trust, empathy, and the ethical use of power
Providing what team members need to operate at peak performance
Considering the individuality and special needs of each team member
- Making the most of abilities
- Building motivation and morale
Being a servant first, making the conscious decision to lead
- Leading because you want to serve better, not because you desire increased power

The objective of a project leader as a servant leader is to enhance the growth of team members on the project team and increase teamwork and personal involvement. Look for my next post where we look at 21 Project Leadership Tips to Build a High-Performance Team!

James Haner

3 Steps to a successful deployment of SharePoint and how to set the time on your VCR

Published July 16, 2010 sharepoint Leave a Comment
Tags: sharepoint

I am old enough to remember the first VCRs and also remember that most homes that had VCRs their clocks flashed 12:00. For the new guys reading this and scratching their heads, this would be equivalent to the internet time service (ITS) not being configured correctly and the PVR has no idea what time it is.

If you carefully examine homes of the flashing 12:00 VCR you will probably notice the VCR was installed by someone in the family who was savvy enough with wires and TVs. And, once installed the new owner was told how easy it was to use and work and that was it. The first time after a power failure the clock reset to 12:00 and the owner had no clue how to change it. The owner only figured out how to rent a tape (err, download a movie from iTunes) and none of the cool recording features of the VCR were ever utilized.

Successfully getting your VCR (err, PVR) to record and installing SharePoint requires three steps, here they are:

Setup SharePoint

This is usually the part that companies get it right, because it’s interesting. The geeks read Microsoft technet, decide on the SharePoint architecture, install load balancing IIS web servers, SQL Server farms, and tell their friends how many gigabytes of RAM and terabytes of hard disk their new SharePoint farm has.

For the VCR, unbox it and wrestle with the cable behind the TV.
Decide which SharePoint features you want

Geeks love features and this is where things begin to go wrong. Heck, we have all the RAM and disk space in the world why not turn on ALL the features! Little or no time is spent on deciding how SharePoint will be used. And if any time is spent, the usual conclusion is, “we are too busy to figure out what users will do so might as well give them all the features and they can figure it out on their own”.

For the VCR, a 300 page manual is left on the coffee table.
Train the end users on the features that will solve their business problems

If you did step 2 correctly then you would have a small list of features to show the users. These features will delight the users because it will make their job easier. Train them and they will be happy, happy, happy. If you did not do step 2, then no one will do the training because it will take too long going to go through all the features.

For the VCR, put the manual in the drawer for reference, and show the user how to reset the clock and record

Gord Maric
http://www.ciram.com

Specializing in SharePoint and Business Intelligence solutions

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SharePoint vs iPad vs Toyota, step in-the-box for Success

Published May 26, 2010 sharepoint 3 Comments
Tags: ipad, sharepoint

SharePoint , iPad and an auto industry comparison??? Now, this should be good, double helping of Apple or Microsoft Kool-Aid , or mixing the two, and driving while at it? Seriously, there is a connection and that connection will help you in your SharePoint implementation.

I recently purchased an iPad and I have to say I really like the appliance. It does for me exactly what I wanted to do with it. I can easily surf the web, check my mail, look up a recipe, play an occasional game, and run some light business apps like to-do lists, password manager, etc. The large screen makes it very easy to use, it has instant on and it’s much easier to use than a net book. I also have a net book but I find I rarely use it around the house because of the complexity booting and logging in, and I originally purchased it for the reasons I use an iPad.

When I show the iPad to my friends and colleagues it gets two distinct reactions. “Wow”, “neat”, “easy to use”, “fast”, or “what a piece of crap”, “it does not multitask”, “no real key board”, “it’s a toy”.

Search the Internet for why the iPad sucks, or why the iPad is great and you’ll get a list of similar reasons, I don’t need to repeat them here.

When I show people the application of SharePoint most people are impressed and can see immediately how they can use the application. “Lists and libraries will save a ton of email attachments”, “version control will reduce headaches”, “lists will manage projects”, “workflow will reduce mundane work from the project manager”, and “it will make office life easier.” I also get, “it looks like a Microsoft product”, “too difficult to customize”, “too complex to setup”, and “not enough flexibility”.

What are the common connections? In both cases I realized the group putting down the appliance and application are hardcore techies. Does that mean that we should not listen to the techies when it comes to the iPad and SharePoint? Absolutely not, however, their mind is focused on the technology of the product and less on the application of the product. I totally agree with most of their assessments. However, I also agree on the design decisions on the iPad and SharePoint; for example, limited multitasking to save battery life, and web page customization via web parts for ease and speed. Both have their pros and cons.

So who should you listen to when deciding on an application? The answer depends on how the application will be used in the organization and what the application will do for you. The techies will always tell you it’s not 100%, but rarely do we need 100%; 80% is good enough for most and we all know the last 20% is the most expensive.

So where does Toyota fit into this? The last two recalls I read about from Toyota, the accelerator and stability control problem were both fixed mostly through software tweaks. Software in the car was changed to reduce the engine to idle if the accelerator and brake are pressed simultaneously. And, for stability, the brakes respond quicker if the car is turning too fast around a corner to increase stability.

If we take the techies approach, I am sure we can tweak the software in the car to get more performance; we can also get better brakes, better tires and lights.

That approach may be necessary for some, but not the masses. And, I am not sure I want to mess with my ride that I depend on.

What is your business application of SharePoint? Will SharePoint meet your needs? Does it meet most of your needs? Listen to techies, but also listen to your users and then decide.

Gord Maric

SharePoint and Business Intelligence Consultant

SharePoint 2010 Pilot course done but never finished!

Published April 17, 2010 sharepoint Leave a Comment
Tags: sharepoint, sharepoint 2010, training

We finished the SharePoint pilot course with great reviews from the attendees.

On the final day we hit a couple of glitches with excel services which is the web based way of viewing and manipulating Excel spreadsheets. Fortunately most people were able to complete the practical work and see it in action.

There was a lot of material covered in the four days and no matter how well presented, which it was, it can be tough to take it all in. The main thing is to try and apply the knowledge gained as soon after the course as possible.

The next part of the course development is where Dux has to modify the notes and exercises based on the attendees comments and fix any problems we found. In addition to that in this case he has to rebuild the loads for the machines with the release version of SharePoint as soon as it becomes available. Even then the course is never really finished. It will continue to evolve based on the feedback we get from attendees and instructors. Hope you can be a part of that by attending a class soon. Our next sessions are starting in June in the Washington DC area with other dates to follow in New York, Toronto & Chicago. For other dates, please visit our North American and UK schedule. As well, most sessions are also available remotely via Learning Tree AnyWare.

David Severn

Half Way Through the SharePoint 2010 Pilot Course

Published April 15, 2010 sharepoint Leave a Comment
Tags: sharepoint 2010, training

Two days in to the pilot! Attendees have filled out detailed evaluation forms at the end of each day and we then review these to see how we an improve the course – final adjustments to make it even better. We are lucky in that we have a group of enthusiastic people who are giving us the feedback. So far we have found a couple of places where we need some extra course notes. Dux talked for a while about taxonomy design and got some great questions as a result of this. Unfortunately we don’t have much in the notes about this so these need to be created. Another area is that of content types, a really important area in SharePoint. Our challenge with each of these subjects is how detailed to make the material since this is an introductory course.

A few slides with screenshots have colors that were a little unclear on the classroom screens. These will be changed to have greater contrast.

Another area we will increase is that of post exercise class discussions whereby we get great ideas and comments to share during the course. Apart from a few other minor mistakes we are in good shape and that’s not my view it’s the view of the class !

David Severn