Teamwork and collaboration, the secret ingredient of effective SharePoint e learning

Gorillas, dolphins, orcas, wolves and humans. What they all have in common is that they rarely ‘go it alone’ and are highly social animals. How they develop and learn about the world depends solely on their connections – connections that, for humans, are not only for survival but also for their happiness and the success of their careers. With that said, wouldn’t it make sense that teamwork and collaboration be a critical element for effective e learning programs?

Everybody learns differently but what we do know, according to the National Training Laboratory, is that traditional lecture-style teaching only has about a 5 percent retention rate among learners. Reading doesn’t fare much better with a dismal 10 percent retention rate. However, what shouldn’t come as a surprise, is the effectiveness of social elements. Just by adding a discussion to your e learning program will garner a 50 percent retention. And, leading at the top of the chart is practicing (75%) and teaching others (90%).

What many trainers are finding is that a blended e learning approach has been quite successful because of its ability to influence critical thinking among teams. There is an individual component, which is taken in a self-paced manner and a teamwork component, which provides ample opportunities for collaboration between learners.

HOW SHAREPOINT SUPPORTS TEAMWORK AND COLLABORATION

SharePoint is well-known for its content management capabilities but in more recent years it has also taken on the label of grand poobah of collaboration.

What better way to encourage teamwork than with a SharePoint team site. Team sites can be created for just about any collaboration task and is highly customizable - upload content, create task lists for team members, use blogs or wikis to share information, gather input with discussions or surveys and establish a team calendar. For even more convenience, SharePoint and Microsoft Project can be synced together so a manager can make changes in Project and then lead a discussion with the team in SharePoint. No duplicate efforts.

Team sites are not the only way to collaborate. Teamwork and collaboration also happens with SharePoint MySites, wikis, discussion forums, gamification and newsfeeds.

THE POWER LIES IN A SHAREPOINT BLENDED E LEARNING EQUATION

There are a lot of elements that contribute to training success. But, the most powerful equation that leads to a strong online learning environment is face-to-face + synchronous conversations + asynchronous interactions.

In simple terms this means traditional face-to-face training combined with conversations in real time such as Web and video conferencing and concluding with asynchronous communication like discussion boards, blogs, Web-based training and surveys.

Is there a way to wrap all of this magical equation into one easy to use system? The answer is yes. Having an LMS that is tied to your SharePoint, like ShareKnowledge, allows all of this and more.

For example, as a trainer, you can easily upload all of your learning content into one central location in SharePoint. Since ShareKnowledge is built on top of SharePoint, you can seamlessly pull any learning info into the LMS without duplicating efforts.

Within ShareKnowledge, there is also a trainer workplace where all instructor-led training and online training is organized complete with notifications, calendars, grading and reports. In addition, real time collaboration happens with the help of webinar connectors in ShareKnowledge.

ShareKnowledge tailors team training needs by allowing the ability to assign courses based on job title or organizational unit. And, its unique PowerSync™ feature automatically adjusts training with promotions, transfers or team changes.

All of the social features in SharePoint cross over to ShareKnowledge as well. For instance, after taking an e learning course in the LMS, learners can gravitate over to the discussion group that is tied to that course.

NEXT GEN TEAMWORK COLLABORATION WITH SHAREKNOWLEDGE

It is imperative that business units across an organization are equipped with the right tools to meet their specific goals and objectives. And, this often comes with unique training needs that do not always fall under the same organizational LMS umbrella. ShareKnowledge provides a solution for team training when a corporate wide LMS does not work as needed and training demands require granular, departmental, group, or team control in a fast-paced, rapidly changing environment.

While there will always be some crossover in training needs that a corporate wide LMS will suffice, there also will be an equal amount of situations where specific teams need a tailored solution. Common problems teams face include:

• Lack of administrative access or control of the corporate LMS
• A corporate LMS that is too complicated for small team needs
• Inability to customize training for specific team requirements

While most corporate LMSs only allow certain administrative access, this is not the case with ShareKnowledge. Any team, department or group can utilize flexible permissions in order to manage their own training without interfering with centrally managed learning objectives.

Let’s face it, nobody wants or has time to learn a big complicated system in order to do one simple task. On the rare occasion that a team is given access to the corporate LMS, it can lead to frustration when it falls short in usability. ShareKnowledge mimics the same Microsoft Office-like features that many teams have been using for years.

Independent team training is all fun and games until the big boss wants to see how a team is meeting goals and objectives. Managers can easily track team completion with results and status reports within ShareKnowledge. And, because ShareKnowlege provides an integration solution that “talks” to other systems, team managers can seamlessly push back their data to the corporate LMS in an automated, simple manner.

To learn how ShareKnowledge can solve your training needs, please call 1-425-996-4201.

by Amber Rasmussen via Everyone's Blog Posts - SharePoint Community

Tools for setting up standard operating procedures in SharePoint

Almost every organization is under the pressure of some type of compliance training and that reflects why companies put together standard operating procedures to maintain processes that will ensure services and/or products are delivered consistently every time. Setting up a system to manage standard operating procedures is essential and the solutions SharePoint provides is invaluable.

The Brandon Hall Group recently published a 2014 report on why compliance training is so critical to business. What they found is that companies ranked compliance second behind products and services for overall business strategy, many had to demonstrate compliance to an external agency, and compliance effects a large portion of their organization. Here’s the problem…less than half of those in the study felt prepared for a compliance audit. This is not good news. But, fortunately there is a solution with SharePoint and in the following blog, we’ll explain in further detail how you can feel better prepared for such circumstances.

Choosing a library vs. site

First things first, you’ll need to decide how you will organize your standard operating procedures. SharePoint reigns supreme as a content management tool but there are a few ways you can go about organizing your content. The most important thing to consider is content findability. When someone comes to your SharePoint HR Portal, they should find what they expect and they should find it with a minimum of clicks. So, the question is should you store SOPs in a library or site?

Libraries are primarily a tool of document management. Unlike folders, libraries support metadata for search, workflows, versioning, and the implementation of managed processes. Sites, on the other hand, are a tool of information management. Sites are robust and offer the ability to present documents in a broader context – links, calendar, blog. Some organizations found that depending on the situation, their site wasn’t being utilized to its fullest and the library was the only feature being used. Something to consider - a well-defined library looks much better than an unused team site.

If you choose to move forward and structure an SOP library, the best approach is to get rid of the Shared Documents library which tends to become a “junk drawer.” Don’t ask where to put it. Ask, where am I going to find it. Think about how you access your documents, and then build libraries around that.

The next step after creating a library is to distinguish how much control is needed. Who should have access to the content, add or change content, and with what restrictions?

Make sure standard operating procedures are findable with metadata

Metadata allows for library configuration that enforces consistent document classification which in turn helps improve the user’s search results. If you have a very large amount of SOPs, than metadata navigation is a tool you’ll want to get familiar with.

When metadata navigation is configured for a list or library, a tree control on the left-hand side of the page displays a hierarchy of both folders and managed metadata terms that can be used to filter the view of items in the list or library to create dynamic displays of content.

Setting up metadata navigation

1. Go to the list or library for which you want to configure metadata navigation.

2. Click the List or Library tab of the ribbon, and then click List Settings or Library Settings.

3. Under General Settings, click Metadata navigation settings. In the Configure Navigation Hierarchies section, select the field or fields that you want to display in the navigation hierarchy and then click Add.

4. By default, the navigation tree displays folders. If you do not want folders to display, select Folders and then click Remove.

5. In the Configure Key Filters section, select the fields that you want to add as Key Filters, and then click Add.

6. In the Configure automatic column indexing for this list, specify whether you want to create indexes automatically on this list. This improves the performance of the queries that users perform when they use the navigation tree and Key Filter columns that you specified. It is recommended that you select the option automatically manage column indices on this list.

7. Click OK.

Cover all your bases with SharePoint workflows

With standard operating procedures, it is imperative that there is structure from how the document is created, edited, finalized and approved. Workflows in SharePoint are a great tool to automate movement of documents or items through a sequence of actions or tasks that are related to a business process. This can happen on a document or library level.

Types of workflows:

• Approval - This workflow routes a document or item to a group of people for approval.
• Collect Feedback - This workflow routes a document or item to a group of people for feedback. Reviewers can provide feedback, which is then compiled and sent to the person who initiated the workflow.
• Collect Signatures - This workflow routes a document to a group of people to collect their digital signatures.
• Disposition Approval - This workflow, which supports records management processes, manages document expiration and retention by allowing participants to decide whether to retain or delete expired documents.
• Group Approval - This workflow is similar to the Approval workflow, but it uses a designated document library and offers a personalized view of the approval processes in which a user is participating.

Adding a workflow:

• Open the list or library for which you want to add or change a workflow.
• On the Settings menu, click List Settings, or click the settings for the type of library that you are opening.
• On the Customize page, in the Permissions and Management column, click Workflow Settings.
• On the Add a Workflow page, in the Workflow section, in the Select a workflow template list, select the name of the workflow that you want to use.
• In the Name section, type a unique name for the workflow. This name will be used to identify the workflow to site users.
• In the Task List section, specify a tasks list to use with this workflow.
• In the History List section, select a history list to use with this workflow. The history list displays all of the events that occur during each instance of the workflow.
• In the Start Options section, specify how (automatically or manually), when (item update, creation or both), or by whom a workflow can be started. Note that the available start options are determined by the workflow template and will differ from one workflow to another.
• Click Next to configure workflow-specific settings, as necessary.
• After you have configured workflow-specific settings, click OK to finish adding the workflow to the list or library.

Keep all standard operating procedure records with auditing and version control

According to the previously mentioned Brandon Hall Group study, many organizations must demonstrate compliance to an outside agency. SharePoint makes it easy with auditing and version control.

Now that we’ve added metadata and workflows to your SOP library, now it’s time to set versioning.

• Navigate to your standard operating procedures library
• On the ribbon, in the Library Tools group, click the Library tab.
• Click Library Settings.
• On the Library Settings page, under General Settings, click Versioning settings. The Versioning Settings dialog box opens.
• In the Document Version History section, select one of the following options: create major versions or create major and minor versions.
• Optional: Limit the number of versions you want to retain.
• Optional: Determine which users should be allowed to see draft items in the document library.
• Optional: Determine whether you want to require check out in this library.
• Click OK to close the dialog box and return to the Document Library Settings page.

 

SOP training is crucial because not only is it the backbone of the organization but it also becomes the living, breathing foundation that evolves with the organization. Add to the fact that about 78 percent of companies employ SharePoint, wouldn’t it make sense to utilize its supreme content management capabilities for your standard operating procedures? Content management, advanced search capabilities, workflows, versioning and auditing are just a click away. See how SharePoint can cover all your compliance needs to make your job easier.

by Amber Rasmussen via Everyone's Blog Posts - SharePoint Community