The Running Librarian

James Robertson has written an excellent post on the Column Two called "Where to start with a SharePoint intranet" in it he outlines the considerations for Intranet teams if they're asked to look at using SharePoint as an Intranet platform.

• Firstly James talks about how Intranet managers should "Understand the platform" - this appears to be essential when dealing with SharePoint. Put simply SharePoint has huge strengths and equally a number of weaknesses. The goal as James puts it "...is to maximise the benefits from the strengths and to avoid the weaknesses like the plague" What this means in reality is understanding what SharePoint can do and cant do and as a result being able to have an honest and open discussion with your IT department about how you think SharePoint should be used

• Then James discusses how important it is for Intranet teams to have a crystal clear vision and direction for their implementation of SharePoint. This is because as James describes it "The flexibility of SharePoint means that deployments can easily lose their way. In far too many cases, we’ve seen organisations 2-3 years on from deploying SharePoint end up with a spaghetti mess of “stuff”, with no clear successes. This is not a technology or product failure, it’s a failure of planning"

SharePoint might be seen as many Intranet managers as a threat but as James says "Intranet teams should be excited by the opportunities presented by SharePoint and there is no question that Intranets will be transformed as a result of this new technology"