SharePoint Build UX Insights & Recommendations

Challenge

Due to the success and recognition of our customer experience activities, I was tasked with adapting our 8-week process for external clients to assist with gathering insights and recommendations for an upcoming SharePoint Intranet Build. 

The project was not without its challenges. I grappled with the scope of participants, the need for speed, and the lack of clear leadership goals. Additionally, the scarcity of internal quantitative data and the underutilization of the existing company Wiki posed significant hurdles.

Our goals included:

  • Identifying the value prop of the SharePoint to internal users

  • Understand employee goals, barriers impeding those goals, and the process they take to accomplish them

  • Gain stakeholder buy-in regarding intranet recommendations and address concerns while fostering a positive perception of change

Action

My approach was comprehensive. I led three remote workshop activities, the largest to date, with 36 participants. I leveraged our Miro Whiteboard for collaboration and followed the 8-week process designed for our customer-focused activities. This process included three workshops with specific goals and activities, culminating in a swim lane process mapping in the third workshop. 

Each workshop started with a short presentation introducing terms, concepts, and activities. Then, I jumped into conducting the collaborative activities through Miro. We then had two weeks to analyze data, produce insights, and make recommendations that would inform the next presentation for the workshop. 

Along the way, we vetted our insights and recommendations through our participant group by preloading Zoom polls. This allowed us to get real-time feedback and prioritize our recommendations to the Executive Leadership Team. 

Due to the participant group size, I used the break-out groups feature in Zoom for the persona maps and process swim lane activities, allowing us to break the 36 participants into smaller groups to work together on completing the tasks at hand. At the end of the activity, I left time to come together and have the groups present high-level feedback from their group activities.

Result

When I presented our final synthesis of insights and recommendations to executive leadership and my participant group, I received great feedback, gratitude, and praise. 

My collaboration with the IT teams was instrumental in the project's success. I delivered five detailed user personas, and identified and incorporated unique technical features into the build, showcasing the IT teams' expertise and contribution. 

We ended up delivering:

  • Visual sitemap PDF made in Miro

  • Detailed Sitemap Excel document

  • Content Inventory Excel Template

  • Intranet technical and functional requirements doc

  • Intranet governance model doc

  • Final presentation deck complete with process, insights, and recommendations