Closing the Technology vs. Business Gap

I'm Chris Mullendore, a Microsoft Premier Field Engineer focusing on the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server ("MOSS" for those in-the-know) product line. In my prior lives I was Knowledge Manager for one company, and a software developer for another, meaning I've worked on both the technology and the strategy side of things... and there's no question that the technology side is where my true interests lie.

My experience though has led me to the understanding that there is a small gap (Grand Canyon kind of small) between what is technically possible and what is strategically prudent... and I have never seen a product make this as incredibly obvious as MOSS. The reason is that MOSS offers a huge amount of capability and options, but it is in a rare category because almost every action taken has a direct end-user impact. Lets take Active Directory for example... most people don't really even know it's there. Their computer works, they log in, they get access to what they need, they request access to groups, and they use information from it all the time... but they frequently don't know that it's AD they're actually interacting with. Plus, a lot of configuration can happen in AD with almost no visible impact to an end user. OUs can be created, accounts can be managed, permissions can be set, etc., and all the user really knows is that they can get to what they want to get to.

MOSS is different. Though there are certainly exceptions, almost every decision you make has an impact on the user. SSP configuration options, search settings, permissions, BDC configuration, even backups (if you lock the content database) have a direct impact on users. You can do your best to hide these changes as much as possible, but the changes are still there and still have an impact, even if minimized as much as possible.

So that's what this blog is intended to focus on... to call attention to the businessimpacts of technical decisions in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. I'll occasionally be more business, occasionally more technical, but my goal will always be to address the relationship between the two.

"With great power comes great responsibility"
As MOSS administrators and technical specialists, we all have huge power in the systems our customers (yours and mine) are using... and it is our responsibility to take action with caution and care, ensuring that the benefits we're trying to achieve come with as few tradeoffs as possible.

primum non nocere