Most clients that I worked with, they install SharePoint but stuck on how to use it. They don't know where to start. They create the first the site collection, they change the logo, but they don't know what to do next. In this tip I will share with you one easy way to get started and leverage SharePoint as a collaboration tool. I will focus only on collaboration, not publishing, or organization.

When it comes to collaboration, companies found difficulties on how to create collaborative spaces. In this post, I'll give you a tool that you can use to design better collaborative sites. Before I talk about collaboration and I want to speak about Systems theory.

Systems theory

In systems theory, a system is composed of parts. Some parts are essential to the functioning of the systems, whereas others are secondary. And some parts are just appendixes. The system will not function if one of its essential parts is removed, but it can function if a secondary part gets removed.

As an example, let's take a Computer as a system. A computer has a lot of parts such as CPU, RAM, Hard disk, mouse, keyboard… etc. The computer can't function at all if we remove the CPU, which is an essential part, but it will continue to work without a keyboard. Removing a secondary part such as the keyboard will impact proper functioning, but it's not fatal. In the other hand removing brand sticker will not impact functioning at all. The brand sticker is seen as an appendix to the computer.

Besides the parts, the most important thing that creates a system is how parts interact with each other. Having only parts doesn't create a system. In order to have a working system, we should put the parts together and define how they should interact with each other. Having the best parts is not enough to create the best system. Interactions are critical in a system. For example: putting an aircraft engine in a car, will not make it better.

In general, most of the friction that leads to energy waste occurs during parts interactions. As an example, even though the main goal of the interaction between the brakes and the wheels is to slow the car, a lot of energy is wasted in the form of heat. For this reason improving the way parts interact with each other, will improve system throughput and efficiency.

Your team as a system

We can think of a team of people as a system. A team takes some inputs, process them, and generate results as output. A team is made of people, which are the parts of the system. The results are not produced solely by the team members, unless it's a one person team. Results are produced by the members interacting with each other.

As a manager, in order for you to improve your team, you should first improve the way they cooperate with each other.

How your team wastes energy?

There are a lot of ways in which team members interact. For example, to exchange information, they can use email, telephone, meetings… etc. Even though technology tells us that we are sending and receiving information at the speed of light, the reality is not. We still need time to write and read the email. To push this example to the extreme, would it be better if information flow from one person's head to the other without any intermediate. Imagine me giving you this tip instantly by looking at you.

Reducing or improving the interaction between your team members will help you gain some of the wasted time.

What is collaboration?

From a systems point of view, collaboration is how your team interacts with each other to handle input and achieve the desired outcome.

Where is SharePoint in all of these?

SharePoint can be used to facilitate different interactions between team members. SharePoint can reduce the time wasted on exchanging information between team members. This doesn't mean that SharePoint is here to reduce or eliminate human contacts, on the contrary, it is here to make these contacts valuable. To put it another way, with SharePoint I won't spend time with a teammate checking who has the latest version of a document.

How to create collaboration sites?

The first, and the most important thing is to look for the way people interact and exchange information and data. Try to look for all the ways, even the subtle ones. For example, if someone told you that he send a Fax to a supplier, and then he winks to his colleague to signal him that it's done, all of this is interaction, sending the Fax and the wink.

Once you have all the interactions, you arrange them in contexts. The contexts give you sites structure. Then for each interaction, check if there is a SharePoint tool that can eliminate it, or can make it easier.

Summary

Most of the friction is generated during people's interactions either directly or via communication tools. Looking for a ways to make interactions easier will reduce this friction and improve productivity. SharePoint is a powerful tool that can be used to interact with other people. Looking for how teammates interact with information, not only on how they organize it, will help you leverage your SharePoint deployment.