SharePoint ఎ బ్రీఫ్ హిస్టరీ (ఒక సాపేక్ష నూతన దృక్పథంలో)
గుర్తు: ఈ వ్యాసం మొదట కు పోస్ట్ చేయబడింది www.endusersharepoint.com. I forgot to post it to my own blog 🙂
SharePoint Microsoft వద్ద ఒక పొదిగే సాంకేతిక విధమైన దాని ప్రారంభ రోజుల నుంచి ఒక గొప్ప ఒప్పందానికి రూపొందింది –ఇది దాదాపు ఒక భయానక చిత్రం అభివృద్ధి యొక్క, పిచ్చి శాస్త్రవేత్త సృష్టి దాని సొంత జీవితం తీసుకుంటుంది పేరు, breaking free of its creator’s expectations and rules. The technical evolution is obvious – the WSS 3.0 ఆబ్జెక్ట్ మోడల్ WSS కంటే ధనిక మరియు మరింత సంక్లిష్టంగా ఉంటుంది 2.0, which was itself an improvement over earlier versions. The next version will no doubt show tremendous improvement over 3.0. From an End User’s perspective, అయితే, SharePoint యొక్క పరిణామం మరింత విశిష్టమైనది.
ప్రారంభ రోజుల్లో, SharePoint didn’t offer much to End Users. They would have their usual functionality requirements, work with IT to define them well and implement a solution. IT would use SharePoint to solve the problem. The product wasn’t very accessible to End Users. I’ve thought threw a few analogies, but I decided to stick Venn Diagrams to show what I mean. When Microsoft first released SharePoint to the world as a commercial offering, ఇది ఎండ్ యూజర్ చాలా సంప్రదాయ నమూనా తరువాత <-> IT relationship. A lot of End Users, కమ్యూనికేట్ మరియు వ్యాపార సమస్యలను పరిష్కరించే పరిష్కారాలను అందించటానికి ఇది ఒక చాలా చిన్న సంఖ్య వ్యక్తులతో పని:
SharePoint ఒక సరిఅయిన డెలివరీ వేదిక ఇది మొత్తం సమస్య డొమైన్ చిన్నది (especially compared to today’s SharePoint. End Users and IT worked in a more classic arrangement with IT: define requirements to IT, wait for IT do their work behind the curtain and take delivery of the final product.
As SharePoint evolved to the 2.0 world (WSS 2.0 and SharePoint Portal Server), several things happened. మొదటి, the “problem domain” increased in size. By problem domain, I mean the kinds of business problems for which SharePoint could be a viable solution. ఉదాహరణ కోసం, you wouldn’t think too hard about implementing a serious search solution in a SharePoint environment until SPS (and even then, it wasn’t as good as it needed to be). అదే సమయంలో, End Users have an unprecedented ability to not only define, but also implement their own solutions with little or no IT support.
ది 3.0 వేదిక (WSS మరియు MOSS) maintained and increased that momentum. The problem domain is enormous as compared to the 2.0 వేదిక. Virtually every department in a company, తయారీ ఆరోగ్య మరియు భద్రతా విభాగాలు నుండి మార్కెటింగ్ వరకు, నాణ్యత నియంత్రణ అమ్మకాలను నుండి - వారు SharePoint కోసం ఒక మంచి ఉపయోగం వెదుక్కోవచ్చు (మరియు అది ఒక చదరపు రంధ్రం లోకి ఒక రౌండ్ పెగ్ ముద్దచేయడం ఒక సందర్భంలో కాదు). అదే సమయంలో, the platform empowers even more End Users to implement their own business solutions. I try to capture that with this diagram:
This has proven to be both a potent and frustrating mixture. ది 3.0 platform turns previously stable roles on their heads. Suddenly, చివరి వినియోగదారులు భాగమే న్యాయమూర్తి, jury and executioner వ్యాపార విశ్లేషకుడు, application architect and developer for their own business solutions. This gets to the heart of the problem I’m writing about. But before I dive into that, let’s consider the elephant in the room.
Peering into the Crystal Ball
How will SharePoint 2010 affect this pattern? Will it be incremental or revolutionary? Will more, fewer or about the same number of End users find themselves empowered to build solutions in SharePoint 2010? Will SharePoint 2010’s problem domain expand even further or will it just refine and streamline what it already offers in WSS 3.0 / MOSS?
There’s enough information “out there” to safely say that the general answer is:
- The problem domain is going to dramatically expand.
- End Users will find themselves even more empowered than before.
The Venn Diagram would be larger than this page and cause some IT Pros and CxO’s to reach for their Pepto.
I believe it’s going to be a tremendous opportunity for companies to do some truly transformational things.
No Bulls in My China Shop!
This sounds great, but from my point of view as a SharePoint consultant and putting myself into the shoes of an IT manager, I see this vision. I own a China shop with beautiful plates, crystal, మొదలైనవి (my SharePoint environment). I’ve rented a space, I’ve purchased my inventory and laid it all out the way I like it. I’m not quite ready to open, but in anticipation, I look at the door to see if my customers are lining up and I notice an actual bull out there. I look more closely and I actually see రెండు bulls and even a wolf. Then I notice that there are some sheep. Sheep are ఈ విధంగా చెడ్డ, but are they maybe disguised wolves? I don’t want bulls in my china shop!
It gets worse! When I rented the space, I couldn’t believe how nice it was. Wide and open, terrific amenities, very reasonable price. అయితే, now I’m realizing that the wide open spaces and the huge door is just perfectly sized for a bull to come wandering in and lay waste to my china.
I’m pushing this analogy too far, కోర్సు యొక్క. End Users are not bulls (most of them, ఏమైనప్పటికి) and IT departments don’t (or surely should not) view their user community with that kind of suspicion. అయితే, there is this sort of perfect collision taking place already in the the 3.0 platform that I expect will only get worse in SP 2010. SharePoint already empowers and encourages End Users to define and implement their own solutions.
That’s great and all, but the fact is that it’s still a very technical product and still calls for the kind of vigorous business requirements analysis, design and general planning and management that technical projects require to be successful. These are not the kind of skills that a lot of End Users have in their bag of tricks, especially when the focus is on a technical product like SharePoint.
I’ve given this a lot of thought over the last year or so and I don’t see any easy answer. It really boils down to education and training. I think that SP 2010 is going to change the game a bit and it’s going to play out differently and in slow motion as companies roll out their SP 2010 solutions over 2010 and beyond. In order to succeed, End Users will need to transform themselves and get a little IT religion. They’ll need to learn a little bit about proper requirements
analysis. They will need some design documentation that clearly identifies business process workflow, ఉదాహరణ కోసం. They need to understand fundamental concepts like CRUD (create, update and delete), dev/test/qa/prod environments and how to use that infrastructure to properly deploy solutions that live a nice long time and bend (not break) in response to changes in an organization.
In the coming weeks, I plan to try and provide some of my own new ideas, as well as link to the great work done by many other authors (మీద www.endusersharepoint.com మరియు ఏదో ఒకచోట) so that interested End Users can learn that old time IT religion. Keep tuned.
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నా బ్లాగ్ సబ్స్క్రయిబ్.
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