Today I was due to give a workshop on SharePoint governance at the JBoye 09 Aarhus Conference, and Shawn Shell was giving a workshop on managing SharePoint projects. The numbers were, shall we say, small. There were plenty of delegates at the conference, which as usual has the unique JBoye buzz about it, very good food and even better networking opportunities. So why so few workshop delegates?

I have a concern that it is because the governance battle is over. IT have won. The business doesn't have a say in how SharePoint will be implemented, or (looking ahead) whether the organisation will upgrade to SharePoint 2010. It is all just going to happen, and all the good practice in the world is not (I fear) going to be taken into account. I'd like to be proved wrong, but the evidence from conversations with delegates at the conference suggest that I'm probably uncomfortably close to the truth.

Please do not think for one moment I am suggesting that SharePoint is  poor choice for an organisation. Indeed the upgrades and new features for SharePoint 2010 show that Microsoft is listening to the feedback from users. But the need to have an ongoing, informed, dialogue between all the stakeholders is even more important in planning for SharePoint 2010 than it is in implementing SharePoint 2007.  

Caveat implementor, as perhaps they used to say in Rome

Martin White