This session on SharePoint was positioned as an "Interactive Session" so I was interested to see the difference between this and the more traditional "breakout" sessions which basically mean a presentation in a smaller auditorium. I went along to join the session and it was in a relatively smaller room (capacity around 150) and we were invited to ask questions as we went along. The presenter had also picked a lot less slides, summarising his own experiences with developers and SharePoint.
The discussion echoed some of my own experience with Server platforms like SharePoint. To take one product example, in the past I have used versions of Microsoft Commerce Server to deliver internet retail websites. My own experience from an architect and team lead perspective is that with some developers I had a job to persuade them to learn how to code against the product rather than using their own code and accessing an underlying database directly. Some developers (generally the minority) are happy to buy in to the idea that a server product will save them time, others view it as less of a coding challenge and do not want to know.
Anyway, back to the presentation. Gianpaolo Vittorelli of Microsys started by reminding us of the history of SharePoint and the "all things to everyone" difficulty it brings. Everyone (not just developers) ask if SharePoint is an Intranet Toolkit, a Document Management System, a Knowledge Management and Collaboration Tool or a Development Environment? Or is it all of these - which it can be. In fact, Gianpaolo claimed that in order to assist with a demonstration, you should cover preconceptions in advance of a meeting before they are even shown the product.
On the theme of limitations and preconceptions, Gianpaolo showed an example of an Intranet that his company had created for a company to manage photography. It was still SharePoint, but time had been spent by a design company and creative developers to give the customer what they wanted, even if this was to spend a lot of money on the correct font.
One point that Gianpaolo really wanted to emphasise is that in his experience, it is not necessarily the effort of learning and developing against SharePoint which is the biggest challenge, but the types of business that can prove tough for a developer. For instance, Human Resources and Communications departments are two of those that are really interested in what SharePoint can do for them, but they can also be tough to gather requirements from because of the type of people they are. In fact, I would probably go as far as saying that out and out coders are probably at the other end of the spectrum in terms of social skills to the people that excel in HR and Comms roles. HR and Comms are all about people, whether it is concerned with their career or whether it is to do with managing their perceptions.
Another point that Gianpaolo acknowledged is that SharePoint can be a struggle to get to terms with because it is a sophisticated product, take a look at it and there is lots going on and lots of concepts. He did make a valid point though, which is that any sophisticated product takes some effort to learn. All developers have had the experience of joining a project that has started, and the headache of picking up functions, code and team roles. The only time that you don't have that is when you have been there from the start - perhaps years before.
So it also does well to have an element of caution, SharePoint is sophisticated and requires management. Users can do a lot of damage if they use the full admin capabilities, but developers can do even more damage with their tools, but this is again true of any equally sophisticated application.
But two points were emphasised in building the case for Sharepoint; firstly that it helps your project to get further faster, and this will keep the users at bay, but also unlike other development projects, one mark of a successful SharePoint project is that it never ends and rather continues to grow and get adopted by more and more departments. This could be argued to be different projects under a programme of work, but I guess you and I get the point. I put my question to Gianpaolo of how to stop developers bypassing SharePoint (and got a usb stick for asking a question) to which he reminded us of the potential problems at upgrade time or the risk to the product as service packs may change the schema. He also suggested a more extreme way of dealing with such a developer, but discretion prevents me from repeating that part of his reply.
Key Facts:
Session Code: OFC04-IS
Speakers: Gianpaolo Vittorelli
Track: Office and SharePoint
Rating: 9/10
Attendance: 40+