“I hate SharePoint.”
I always love when a conversation begins this way. We can only go up from here. When I was in consulting roles, I would frequently hear this very comment, word for word. I’m a total believer in using the right tool for the right job. But SharePoint very frequently fills many needs in knowledge management (my specialty), making it one of my favorite tools. So, when I hear these kinds of comments, I can’t help but ask “Why?”. And then I listen with fascination as people share their experiences with SharePoint.
I’ve seen some wonderful applications in SharePoint. Elegant, simple, and value realizing. But I’ve also seen some really BAD applications. I mean bad.
One that really stands out. I was working for a government agency that hosted SharePoint for a huge clientele (public sector) base that needed secure collaboration facilities. One agency had some serious applications developed in Lotus Notes. It was old, clunky, and in serious need of an upgrade. They paid for us to host their new solution to be developed in SharePoint. But, instead of hiring consultants that know SharePoint, they hired the same company that had developed the Lotus Notes application. The customer’s thought process was that this company already knew the requirements, therefore, they would be the best to develop the new application.
The company developed the application. But, much to our surprise, they did it all in javascript. Made it look exactly like the previous Lotus Notes application. And didn’t use anything in SharePoint other than its hosting capabilities. Then the customer was complaining that “SharePoint sucked!” Hahaha. Some of what they were trying to achieve could be done easily with out of the box capabilities, workflows, and no need for coding. You can imagine their surprise when we demonstrated this and contrasted it to the “new” application that had been developed.
One of the powers in modern tools like SharePoint (and yes, there are other examples of this) is the enablement of the business user. You can do amazing things in SharePoint without knowing code. You do not need to be a developer to get a webpage to show data that why you need it to. And when you do exceed its exposed capabilities, then you can bring in different tiers of technical expertise to achieve exactly what is needed. Just don’t hire a carpenter when you need plumbing! 😊
Right job for the right tool. Lest you be played a fool!
