Governance is often associated negatively with bureaucracy, an overbearing set of restrictions that do not add real value. True, governance lays out roles, responsibilities, and decision-making processes, but we prefer to see governance as the creation of a shared vision for the intranet and a forum for leaders across the organization to work together on the shared goal of a successful implementation.

We work with our project sponsors to recruit leaders to serve on a Governance Committee. We meet regularly to talk about progress on the environment, answer any questions they might have, and together define the roles, responsibilities, and processes which take the form of a Governance Document.

SharePoint is a many-faceted system, and writing a Governance Document from scratch can be a daunting task. It is helpful to have a template to start from and experience in leveraging the committee to complete it.

When we work with a client, we are constantly planning for the day when we are no longer there. It is costly and inefficient for us to do things that could be handed off to power-users and IT support staff. Governance enables our team to step away from the project or move on to new feature development without the usefulness of the software degrading over time.

Before you implement a new SharePoint site, you should ask yourself the following questions:

• If your project team stopped working altogether, what would your intranet be like one year from now?

• Does the project team have a Governance Document template?

• Does the project team have experience organizing a Governance Committee and writing a Governance Document?

• Do you have influential people across the business units who are willing to server on a Governance Committee?

You've completed the course. Congratulations!