Defining the SharePoint Service
When you adopt a SharePoint operational model that treats users of the SharePoint system as customers, whether internal or otherwise, you not only establish a positive mentality for operations, but you also steer the direction of the whole team towards the users’ best interests or what will provide the users with the most value. If you treat SharePoint as a service that you offer, you start to generate this customer-focused mindset. When you define the boundaries and constraints of your SharePoint service, your SharePoint managers are not only able to set expectations with users of the service, but they also benefit from a planning structure that guides budget and resourcing decisions. Your service description also provides a baseline to measure and report against, enabling your SharePoint team to understand the value the service provides and communicate details of it to sponsors and executives, and this potential can only help to justify your team’s budget or resource requests.
The chapters in this part cover different areas for defining the SharePoint service you offer. This definition and all of its outputs can take formal forms such as a service description document or a section in a governance document, or informal forms such as a wiki page on a SharePoint site that outlines the service offered and the different processes involved. What degree of formality you choose depends on your specific situation and the comfort levels of your organization and users. I will leave that up to your discretion. The important point is to define what service you offer, what is involved in that service, and what resources are responsible for what actions.