Why are governance and taxonomy planning suddenly such a big deal? Engineering is the process of creating solutions that take advantage of natural laws. As an example, building designs follow certain rules because they are leveraging the same organizing principles. Things like gravity, tensile strength, compression, expansion and contraction, friction etc. all provide a framework for civil engineering decisions and best practices.
The problem with the world of computing is that it is becoming increasingly virtualized. Virtualization essentially means that the engineered solution is isolated from the "real world." Virtualization layers at the OS level make operating systems interchangeable and the physical architecture largely transparent.
The problem is that engineers still need a set of organizing principles and best practices in order to create solutions that work together in concert. If, by its very nature, virtualization technology has removed any dependence on the physical environment, then hardware and software engineers must agree to an entirely arbitrary set of organizing principles. This process of creating arbitrary standards to harmonize disparate technologies is known as Enterprise Architecture.
SharePoint has now taken virtualization to a whole new level. Business process and decisions are, for the first time ever, largely unconstrained by physical technology. So, there is a need for a new set of processes for business leadership and technology leadership to agree upon arbitrary organizing principles and best practices.
The organizing principles are founded on the organization's taxonomy, and the best practices are embodied in the governance process. The good news is that the business leadership is really and truly calling the shots with regard to technology for the first time ever. The bad news is that the business leadership has to figure out what they really want and how to communicate it to the technology team.
This is where my governance and taxonomy workshop comes into play. For two days the business and technology leadership works together to hammer out a set of agreed organizing principles (taxonomy) and a method for generating and managing minimalist best practices (governance).
SharePoint will do just about anything you want it to do, and this means it is all up to you.
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