Hi all

Just a quick note to let you know that I will be speaking at the Perth leg of the BusinessAnalystWorld conference this week. My topic is called “IBIS: The one best practice for managing wicked problems" and I will be talking about the characteristics of wicked problems and how IBIS and Issue Mapping can help to manage them. I will also cover off some other sense-making tools in this talk like debategraph.

The BA World conference is the only one of its kind in Australia and will cover all sorts of interesting topics such as requirements elicitation, change management, business process modelling, Agile, stakeholder management and BABOK. The theme for the event is “Work Smarter. Plan Harder” and will allow BA leaders to ensure that projects are clearly defined and flawlessly executed, enabling them to make the right decisions at every level in the organisation and increase project success.

I am really looking forward to participating and it will be interesting to see what sort of feedback I get from a non SharePoint audience. As you may have gathered, this is not a SharePoint event and although I will still be talking about SharePoint as a collaborative platform to support working smarter, the main focus is on the power of IBIS and issue Mapping to help elicit real and tacit requirements and fast-track the path to shared understanding.

Thanks for reading

Paul Culmsee

www.sevensigma.com.au

It’s been quite some time since I have blogged, and the months of July/August were really pretty full-on professionally. High work demands and preparation for the Best Practices Conference meant that blogging and any sort of public work really took a back-seat.

So now that it is over and I am sitting here in an airport lounge reflecting, I have one word to say about the BPC 09 in DC that I just attended.

Segways rock!

You have not lived until you have ridden a segway – and I mean the new ones where you lean to control it. Even better than riding a segway is to ride it through DC, a city that blew me away with its amazing campus-like vibe. Never before has a city really pushed my buttons like this place. As you can see above, Ruven Gotz, Andrew Woodward and I visited some of the amazing DC sights and this photo in particular of Capitol Hill behind us, looking out toward the Lincoln memorial is something I’ll never forget. One thing is for sure, I am definitely coming back here for at least 2-3 weeks with the family just to absorb everything – sooner rather than later.

These best-practices events are really the conference where the material goes beyond the tech-stuff and caters additionally for an audience of consultants, business analysts, project managers and CIO’s. Some sessions are completely strategic, yet some delve deep into the guts of tech. In short, there is something for everyone.

Since the San Diego event back in Feb 09, my fellow kindred spirits, Ruven Gotz, Andrew Woodward, Dux Sy and I have been collaborating to bring our respective messages together and put a cohesiveness around what we have to say. This conference was the first peek of the fruit of that collaborative effort and as far as audience feedback went, it went down really well. In my last session of the conference I had a little Jerry Springer moment, when describing a particular slide that was a part of all of our respective talks, when I asked the audience to describe the slide and they all answered in perfect unison – hehe the message was heard 🙂

I presented 3 sessions, one on my own, and two co-presented with Ruven Gotz and Peter Serzo respectively. Ruven and I have been unhappy with the current (mis)understanding of governance around SharePoint and the culmination of our efforts over the last new months was a talk called “Governance – the other 90%”, although next time I will rename it to “Zen and the art of SharePoint Governance”. This was an umbrella talk to introduce our concepts and thinking, and then it was followed up later in the conference by talks by Ruven, myself and Andrew Woodward. Andrew took out the best overall speaker award too for the conference and we are all super-excited by the fruits of this collaboration so far, and I *know* that bigger and better things are to come from it.

For what its worth, if you want to be “one with SharePoint governance”, remember the key takeaway – beer is the best governance tool you’ve got. 🙂

The session with Peter Serzo was also such fun – we hit upon the idea of doing a Zoolander themed talk to introduce SQL Reporting Services to people who had not seen it. SSRS is one of those tools and technologies where even some well known SharePoint practitioners have not used it. With a title of “Reporting Services for the Really Really Good Looking”, we attracted a good turnout and managed to create and publish a report in 5 minutes, explain the architecture by getting members of the audience to stand up, wear aprons and “model” the various components and show how with no code, information workers could include drill down reports as well as personalised reports via parameters and filter web parts. The very awesome Brett Lonsdale (the guru behind BDC Meta Man), interrupted proceedings, claiming that the BDC was a better option and there was only one way to settle it – he and I had to do a BDC vs SSRS “walk off” which I *of course*, won easily :-).

Brett was a great sport, and I think for a minute audience members actually thought he was serious 🙂

(Now here comes the gushing love people..)

Also this time around, I’ve gotten to know more people and the rare opportunity to hook up again and spend some quality time with various friends was really the thing that makes the 36hr transit from Perth worth it. From the BBQ at Dux Sy’s house, to some great dialogue with Ben Curry of Mindsharp, Judy Cowan of Microsoft, Evan Burfield and the Synteractive people and my SamePage amigo’s (Dux, Ruven and Andrew Woodward). Ben Curry is an out and out genius, and our CV’s seem to read from the same script and I wish I had more opportunity to work with him. Evan Burfield is so scary smart that he automatically become my hero with his amazing understanding of stuff that I am interested in, yet only scratching the surface of the surface 🙂

Special callout to Laura Rogers (aka @wonderlaura). I had to look up what a muse was after she told me I was hers (I am a little sheltered over in Perth 🙂 ). Love her work – in fact, it is *her* work at endusersharepoint.com that inspired me to get back into more end-user content and try this whole screencasting thing. Laura, we are going to have to do something on EUSP together if you’d be up for it – it was a lot of fun hanging out and I think Peter Serzo would be up for something fun as well.

To the people who sat around the bar/restaurant/lobby table and supplied great laughs and great conversation. Zlatan Dzinic is utterly brilliant but is genetically programmed to be unable to whisper in someone else’s session 🙂 ). Mike Ferarra from SharePointReviews.com, Dan Usher, Lori Gowin, Ben Curry for messing with my head constantly, Paul Kolasky (the self-confessed poster boy for wicked problems who Laura eventually discovered *is* harmless 🙂 ) and special mention to Paul Stork – who was labelled as “that nerd who always has to jump ahead” during the Zoolander session.

Final thanks – Peter Serzo and his wife, Stacey. Peter is the most “Australian Amercian” who I have ever met. I think he must have been an Aussie in a former life. He is a tireless worker who’s imagination and inventiveness always sets off sparks of inspiration for me. I am going to try and find a way to get him over to Perth for a local training workshop or user group thing – they’d love his sense of humour.

Sorry if I missed anybody, I apologise. Also, please send me any photos, as many were taken, but I really was quite unsure about who’s camera was clicking at the time 🙂

Thanks for reading

Paul Culmsee

www.sevensigma.com.au

A quick bit of background. My last 2 trips to the USA were particularly fruitful in meeting many like-minded SharePoint pros, all of which are well known and highly regarded. Some close friendships were made and what was really cool was that some people I met, despite having very different skills and experience (and physical locations!), seemed to connect on a level that gave us the desire and impetus to to work together very closely idealistically and commercially. More on that soon enough… 🙂

So who are the members of this global group of SharePoint mystery men?

• Andrew (Agile Boy) Woodward – Agile extraordinaire. So damn agile in fact that blink and you’d never know he was there. Able to demolish long SharePoint projects into bite sized chunks in a single bound
• Ruven (Magneto) Gotz. Mind mapping maestro with the ability to bend information architecture to his will, and able to know what you want before you even have formed the question
• Dux (Mr Myagi) Sy. A sensei project Manager who will teach you the wax-on/wax-off approach to successful SharePoint delivery. He might even get you to paint his fence if you are lucky

and me (aka Dr Wicked) round it off – pushing the boundaries of pop-culture metaphors for cheap laughs and the odd bit of work on shared understanding, ROI and SharePoint governance.

So why does any of this matter?

It just so happens that all four of us are soon to be in the same place at the same time. This is actually a frustratingly rare occasion, given that Andrew is in the UK, I am in Western Australia, Dux is in DC and Ruven is in Toronto. But in August, we will all be presenting at the SharePoint Best Practices Conference in DC. We are all tremendously honoured to be presenters at this event and this time around, we have been collaborating together to try and really deliver some great sessions that capture the essence of our common philosophical approaches.

It takes me around 30 hours of transit to get to the east coast, and Andrew also has to travel a fair distance too. Therefore when these sorts of opportunities present themselves, we like to make the most of it – and we are *not* just talking beer! (ok well that’s not strictly true – beer is a significant motivation :-D)

Accordingly, we are planning a special “SharePoint Governance Mentoring” workshop that will run over a period of 3 days (August 19-21, 2009), prior to the conference itself. It will be a unique, one-off event and numbers will be strictly limited. We think that our combined skills cover the broad spectrum of the SharePoint universe very well, with a particularly strong governance underpinning. Participants will be able to delve into topics such as how to manage a SharePoint project, practical techniques in gathering requirements, achieving shared understanding and buy-in, information architecture, team dynamics and the root causes of organisational chaos that make SharePoint an attractive proposition in the first place. We will also cover making a great business case and understanding return on investment, how to approach application development on the SharePoint platform and above all, learning what governance is really all about, and applying the right sort of governance at the right time. 

Additionally, plenty of time will be allocated for participants to discuss their SharePoint challenges in an open forum, so if you bring your SharePoint baggage, we will lend a sympathetic ear and then arm you with some new kung-fu skills to take back to your organisation.

Does this event sound like your cup of tea? If so, we need to hear from you! We will publish the workshop details and outline in mid-July but we need to gauge interest now. The cost for this three day event will be $1750 per attendee, although anyone who is registered for SharePoint Best Practices Conference will be entitled to a 10% discount.

So if this sounds good to you, then please register your interest at Dux’s site below:

http://sp.meetdux.com/workshop_interest.aspx

Thanks for reading (and we hope to see you there!)

Paul Culmsee

www.sevensigma.com.au

I listened to Steve Smith talk about user engagement on the SharePoint Pod Show today and found myself nodding in strong agreement with many points that he made. So while in that mood of stakeholder engagement and how to achieve it, twitter made me aware of a really terrific Debategraph map on the topic of “Core Principles of Public Engagements” and think it is mandatory learning material for any SharePoint architect/collaboration consultant/business analyst/business improvement specialists/<insert title here>.

The map above, came from a collaborative effort called the “Public Engagement Principals Project”. This is a recent project (February 2009) and the aim was to “create clarity in our field about what we consider to be the fundamental components of quality public engagement”. The outcome of this project are seven recommendations that reflect the common beliefs and understandings of those working in the fields of public engagement, conflict resolution, and collaboration.

1. Careful Planning and Preparation
Through adequate and inclusive planning, ensure that the design, organization, and convening of the process serve both a clearly defined purpose and the needs of the participants.

2. Inclusion and Demographic Diversity
Equitably incorporate diverse people, voices, ideas, and information to lay the groundwork for quality outcomes and democratic legitimacy.

3. Collaboration and Shared Purpose
Support and encourage participants, government and community institutions, and others to work together to advance the common good.

4. Openness and Learning
Help all involved listen to each other, explore new ideas unconstrained by predetermined outcomes, learn and apply information in ways that generate new options, and rigorously evaluate public engagement activities for effectiveness.

5. Transparency and Trust
Be clear and open about the process, and provide a public record of the organizers, sponsors, outcomes, and range of views and ideas expressed.

6. Impact and Action
Ensure each participatory effort has real potential to make a difference, and that participants are aware of that potential.

7. Sustained Engagement and Participatory Culture
Promote a culture of participation with programs and institutions that support ongoing quality public engagement.

Despite the fact this map is all about public engagement, this material is absolutely the best advice you could ever get for dealing with user engagement in your SharePoint endeavours. If you have any interest whatsoever in the mystical arts of getting true understanding and buy-in among your organisational stakeholder group, then this map (and its underlying documents), is for you.

Also, be sure to use the Debategraph toolbar to explore the detailed information in the root node. There is a lot of supplementary information in this map that you can easily access by clicking on the “Show detailed text and comments” icon (highlighted below).

If you are using the Seven Sigma Web Part for Debategraph, the Map ID is 16220 and you can incorporate this map into your broader governance site. I’ll be linking this map into my SharePoint governance map later as I think it complements, and expands upon the information contained there.

I think these seven principles make a terrific starting point for developing your own guiding principles around user-engagement as part of your governance efforts.

Finally, if you want more detailed information about how this map came to be, then consult the links below

• PDF Version – A downloadable version of the Core Principles document.
• List of Endorsers – Complete list of both organizational and individual endorsers.
• Expanded Core Principles Document – View the text of the complete document online.
• PEP Forum – This forum is where much of the conversation about this document took place.

Thanks for reading

Paul Culmsee