I know what to do . . . but should I?

One of the more perplexing problems that I face as a SharePoint administrator is not technical. It's the problem raised when someone approaches me with a question which has both a technical aspect and a governance aspect. I know how to solve their issue -- sometimes more than one way to do it -- but the question is should I? Sure, I can move their documents, grant them access, delete their material, create . . . I stumble over the governance questions related to these requests.

The point is that, as administrators, we need guidance and direction from the business units as to whether we should solve their issue. One of the most perplexing arises when some one says that can't reach a particular URL or see a particular document. I check their rights and sure enough, they can't. Now the issue is should they be able to? I find that the ansers these types of questions are not often readily apparent without a strong governance policy and involvement of the owners of the information.

Often, technology is implemented as the solution to a problem. People feel, that if they can only implement the software, then everything will be solved. But, the implementation of the software is often just the start of what is needed to solve a particular problem. Administration and governance and on-going maintenance and attention are needed both technically, and from a business aspect to assure that the system continues to function effectively for the business.

And not just best practices are needed. The business needs to do the hard work of defining a governance policy and, often, directing the users through policies and procedures aimed directly as the specific entity. On interesting application of this is records retention and legal discovery. The creator of a document may have no knowledge of or interest in this aspect of the document lifecycle. They simply need to produce an artifact for a specific purpose like a meeting presentation, publication, etc. The storage, retention, and disposition of the document beyond this single purpose is beyond their level of expertise and interest. It's up to the records managers to guide the creator in those aspects of the document's lifecycle.

The technology that I administer can implement the policies and procedures and assure that the document is retained for the specific period and then disposed of at the end of its life. But, it can't define those policies. It can make sure that the storage location is secure and backed up properlly, but it can't define who should have access to the document. It can help legal discovery find the documents, but I can't define the correct terms or search methodologies used to classify and index the document infromation.

And technology definitely can't deal with the vagaries of business organization, employee lifecycle and reorganization. As a company evolves, their policies, procedures, and organization evolve to fit the changing business environment and model. Business administrators must assure that the policies and procedures which he software enforces and updated and the software adjusted to accommodate the new environment. It's a never-ending obligation of the human beings to drive the technology to reflect their changing environment.