I'll try to be brief. I'm a noob to the point that I have never used or worked with SharePoint, but I have no doubt I could teach myself to use it. I am not in the IT dept, I am the telecom manager, but I have many of the same skill sets as the IT staff.
Here is the scenario and question from my boss:
Integrated healthcare delivery network with about 10 physical sites in a 15 mile radius, 1300 staff, and 50 depts. IT is outsourced to a management firm that manages our own staff. Average staff IT intellect on a 100 point scale, 40 - 60 with a few bright points.
"The Lone Ranger" is the guy who is the IT manager right now. Picture a 50 year old guy who looks like he smoked too much pot and stuck his finger in a light socket and you will have it nailed. Keeps to himself, likes to play with the live systems, no communication skills, has his own agenda - I'm sure you know the type....
So our company is looking for ways to do some collaboration among the members of different project teams we have. The Lone Ranger has installed SharePoint somewhere in the world and has set up some stuff for his own department and maybe a couple of others. The IT management firm (his ultimate boss) says that we do not want to set up SharePoint for this purpose in our organization because it would get too big and become a management nightmare. The Lone Ranger says "Naaah, It's no big deal, it's really simple." and wants all the groups set up on it.
I have searched the web for places to learn the user experience, demos to play with, servers set up for noobs to mess around with, etc hand have found very little information except stuff about authoring, etc - nothing from an end user's perspective.
My boss wants me to answer the question (for his boss, etc) of whether the IT management company is right, and this is going to be too time intensive for our organization, or if this is going to be a no-brainer and anyone will be able to administer these 'applications'. I downloaded some tutorials and stuff from MS, but they of course need me to have access to SharePoint to use them against it - I don't even know where to find it, and the guy's not about to help me.
My ASSUMPTION is that sharepoint will be like setting up a website with a WYSIWYG tool, which I have done, and users will be able to upload documents and view files and the like similar to the way one uploads stuff to facebook, etc?? I told him it may be just like using a website to the end users, but I have no clue.
He wants to know if we can expect to train an average person in each department to set up and maintain their own sites and content, and the end users will be able to deal with it, or if we are going to have to hire a dedicated staff member (or more) who's sole job is going to be maintaining and modifying the portals for all of the different departments that have them.
I have no doubt I could learn it and administer it, given privileges, but I know (as it has happened before) that I would end up being the go-to-guy expert on the subject, and I have no intention to take on another huge content management nightmare.
We already have an Intranet which was set up by the IT management company based on some CMS or other - I've never cared enough to find out. There are some departments maintaining their own content libraries on there, so I know they're not all stupid!
So if I could hear from you folks who have experience in maintaining this for a mid-size company that will have multiple separate islands of information thru your company - how much of a monster will this be to build, modify, and have pools of 'average' users working with? Will it become a support nightmare?
Thank you!
Here is the scenario and question from my boss:
Integrated healthcare delivery network with about 10 physical sites in a 15 mile radius, 1300 staff, and 50 depts. IT is outsourced to a management firm that manages our own staff. Average staff IT intellect on a 100 point scale, 40 - 60 with a few bright points.
"The Lone Ranger" is the guy who is the IT manager right now. Picture a 50 year old guy who looks like he smoked too much pot and stuck his finger in a light socket and you will have it nailed. Keeps to himself, likes to play with the live systems, no communication skills, has his own agenda - I'm sure you know the type....
So our company is looking for ways to do some collaboration among the members of different project teams we have. The Lone Ranger has installed SharePoint somewhere in the world and has set up some stuff for his own department and maybe a couple of others. The IT management firm (his ultimate boss) says that we do not want to set up SharePoint for this purpose in our organization because it would get too big and become a management nightmare. The Lone Ranger says "Naaah, It's no big deal, it's really simple." and wants all the groups set up on it.
I have searched the web for places to learn the user experience, demos to play with, servers set up for noobs to mess around with, etc hand have found very little information except stuff about authoring, etc - nothing from an end user's perspective.
My boss wants me to answer the question (for his boss, etc) of whether the IT management company is right, and this is going to be too time intensive for our organization, or if this is going to be a no-brainer and anyone will be able to administer these 'applications'. I downloaded some tutorials and stuff from MS, but they of course need me to have access to SharePoint to use them against it - I don't even know where to find it, and the guy's not about to help me.
My ASSUMPTION is that sharepoint will be like setting up a website with a WYSIWYG tool, which I have done, and users will be able to upload documents and view files and the like similar to the way one uploads stuff to facebook, etc?? I told him it may be just like using a website to the end users, but I have no clue.
He wants to know if we can expect to train an average person in each department to set up and maintain their own sites and content, and the end users will be able to deal with it, or if we are going to have to hire a dedicated staff member (or more) who's sole job is going to be maintaining and modifying the portals for all of the different departments that have them.
I have no doubt I could learn it and administer it, given privileges, but I know (as it has happened before) that I would end up being the go-to-guy expert on the subject, and I have no intention to take on another huge content management nightmare.
We already have an Intranet which was set up by the IT management company based on some CMS or other - I've never cared enough to find out. There are some departments maintaining their own content libraries on there, so I know they're not all stupid!
So if I could hear from you folks who have experience in maintaining this for a mid-size company that will have multiple separate islands of information thru your company - how much of a monster will this be to build, modify, and have pools of 'average' users working with? Will it become a support nightmare?
Thank you!