SharePoint 2010 at Work

Chapter 1. The SharePoint Maturity Model

Sadalit Van Buren

How well does your organization use SharePoint? You probably can’t answer that in any quantifiable terms, much less speak about how the various components of SharePoint are working for you.

With SharePoint’s explosive popularity and adoption worldwide, a community of SharePoint experts has formed with the goal of sharing knowledge about this product. The authors in this book, as well as hundreds of others, dedicate their time and energy to help organizations understand and use the product, and have made a galaxy of resources available for different areas of functionality.

What’s been missing is a cohesive way to analyze and understand the platform as a whole. Organizations don’t know what they have, and they may be focusing too much on projects that yield little return, missing the quick wins, or declining to invest in areas that could truly transform their businesses.

I created the SharePoint Maturity Model to apply a holistic view to a SharePoint implementation and to bring standardization to the conversation around functionality, best practices, and improvement. My goal is to allow organizations to reach the full potential of their investments in SharePoint, and the SharePoint Maturity Model is the framework that enables this.

Evolution of the Model

My work as a SharePoint consultant, starting in 2006, gave me a perspective over many different companies and implementation types. I noticed there was a typical progression of ...