SharePoint Governance at Bank of Montreal - How we took action to curb the sprawl of sites Learn about the current state of Information Management in AIIM’s latest report: http://info.aiim.org/2017-state-of-information-management

1. SharePoint Governance at BMO
How we took action to curb the
sprawl of sites

2. Who is Jed?
• Director, Business Technology
Strategy & KM for Legal
Corporate Compliance Group
• Ex-Consultant
• Long time member of AIIM
• Develops and teaches Info
Mgmt / Governance course
for University of Toronto
• Medieval Man-at-Arms
(but only on weekends)
https://www.facebook.com/WilliamOfHedon/

3. Bank of Montreal
• #3 in Canada
• In the Top 10 in North America
• Personal, Commercial, Wealth
Management, Capital Markets
• 45,000 employees in Canada,
U.S., Europe, China, Singapore
• BMO Harris U.S. Markets:
– Chicago
– Milwaukee
– Phoenix
– Indianapolis
– Minneapolis

4. 1. Background and Context
2. High Level Governance Structure
3. Steering Committee
4. Strategy Team
5. Intake and Solutions Team
6. Operations and Support Team
7. Standards and Policy Team
8. Compliance Team
9. Deliverables by SharePoint Workload
10. Next Steps
SharePoint 2013 Governance Program
Table of Contents
1

5. Overall SharePoint Context
• Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2007
• Enterprise intranet portals
• 600 plus intranet publishing sites
• 12,000 plus Team Sites
• Governance work part of migration to SP2013

6. BACKGROUND
BMO is looking to consolidate the numerous SharePoint instances that are currently deployed into production, which are at
varying release and support levels, into a single shared collaboration platform based on SharePoint 2013.
Effective governance of the SharePoint 2013 platform will be key to delivering key productivity tools cost effectively.
Governance is the set of policies, roles, responsibilities, and processes that will guide, direct, and control how BMO will use
SharePoint- based solutions to accomplish business goals. There are three primary areas that comprise SharePoint governance:
• IT governance of the software itself, the operations processes around it, and the services provided
• Application governance of the custom solutions and customizations developed on top of SharePoint
• Information Management governance of the content and information that users store in those services.
SharePoint 2013 Governance
Background
Portal Search Social Team / Collaboration App/Dev BI
What SharePoint Workloads are covered under the new governance
structure?
2

7. Leadership Team
Head of Corporate Intranet, Director DWS,
STO Corporate Technology Development
SharePoint 2013 Governance
High Level Governance Structure
15
SharePoint Steering Committee
CIO Corporate – Executive Sponsor
(Representation from Corporate Communications, Digital Workplace Services , HR T&O Integration, Enterprise Architecture,
LOBs as required)
Supporting Teams
Team Chair Attendees Focus Cadence
Intake and solutions ASM
Representatives based on
SharePoint workload
Solution development and
estimation
Weekly
Operations and support ASM
Representatives from Corporate
Intranet, TD and DWS engineering
Platform stability and SLA Weekly
Standards and policy Rotating
Representatives based on
SharePoint Workload
Standard and policy creation Weekly
Compliance Rotating
Representatives based on
SharePoint Workload
Standard and policy creation Monthly
Strategy Team
Application Support Manager
(Representation from Corporate Communications, DWS, TD)
• Governance: Discuss and confirm key technology decisions, govern all development
activities
• Integration: Ensure cross-stream alignment and coordination
• Communication: Review Sharepoint roadmap and activities and share updates to
broader team
• Dispute resolution
• Represent executive interest
• Advise on broader initiatives potentially
impacting SharePoint

9. SharePoint 2013 Governance
SharePoint Steering Committee
12
• Executive sponsor – chair: CIO Corporate Technology Development
• Executive representing infrastructure: VP Digital Workplace Services
• Executive representing Corporate Intranet and Social Business: VP Strategy Communications
• Delegated SharePoint platform owner: Application Support Manager, Corporate Development
• VP T&O Integration
• Managing Director, Employee Experience and Performance
• Lead Technology Officer (Director) Corporate Technology Development
• Head of Corporate Intranet, Strategic Communication
• Senior Manager Intranet Initiatives, Strategic Communications
• Director, Collaboration, Digital Workplace Services
• Head, T&O Strategies & Initiatives
• Enterprise Architecture
• SharePoint Solution Architect
• SharePoint Infrastructure Architect
•
• Provide executive sponsorship and strategic direction for the SharePoint platform
• Drive related initiatives into their respective organizations
• Approve major projects and initiatives, monitor progress against deployment plans and review adoption
Mandate
Team
SP13 Governance – Steering Committee

10. SharePoint 2013 Governance
Strategy Team
12
• Governance teams review and proactively act based on usage data and business needs
• Business users are assured of protected data, and the security model is known and enforced
• Service-level agreements (SLAs) are in place, platform performance is good, and any custom code is well tested
• Sites are systematically introduced using site templates and created by designated authorities
• The growth of the server farms, servers, and storage is predictable
• Compatibility and portability with future releases of SharePoint and Office 365 is maintained
• Establish and maintain the platform vision and strategy, core purpose and technology roadmap
• Govern the platform as a horizontal BMO shared service by synthesizing requirements from various LOBs
• Oversight around how capabilities and customizations are used
• Decision making body that sets the direction for SharePoint, develops standards and policies and ensures
compliance
• Escalation path for SharePoint governance sub teams and SharePoint initiatives
• Prioritize initiatives going on at the same time that are competing for budget and resources
• Develop a core competency around SharePoint
• Achieve synergies around SharePoint through proper reuse and sharing
• Consistent branding, navigation and user experience
• Ensure stakeholders are informed of initiatives right from inception
Objectives
Mandate
Outcomes
SP13 Governance – Strategy Team

11. SharePoint 2013 Governance
Intake & Solutions Team
12
• Rotating Chair: Digital Workplace Services and Corporate Technology Development
• CTD:
• DWS:
• Corporate Intranet:
• Standard and efficient intake process
• Adherence to architectural and design standards and policies during solution development
• Improved communication & visibility of demand
• Increased adoption of standard templates and limited customization
Objectives
Team
• Manage intake for new initiatives
• Initiate and prepare business cases for new workload or usage scenarios
• Implement, enforce and monitor architectural and design standards and policies
• Assess initiatives for customization needs, required information architecture, infrastructure , Operational and
support requirements, etc.
• Deliver “order of magnitude” or level 0 estimates
Responsibilities
SP13 Governance – Intake & Solutions Team

12. SharePoint 2013 Governance
Operations & Support Team
12
• Rotating Chair: Digital Workplace Services and Corporate Technology Development
• CTD:
• DWS:
• Corporate Intranet:
• Maintain and optimize overall performance and experience for SharePoint users
• Ensure the stability and reliability of the SharePoint platform
• Foster collaboration and heighten awareness of incident and change amongst the various teams that support
the SharePoint platform
• Build and maintain an efficient, knowledgeable platform operation support team
• Increase end user awareness on procedures to obtain assistance when issues are encountered
Objectives
Team
• Establish, communicate, and measure delivery of service level agreements
• Identify, manage and respond to issues, deficiencies, productivity opportunities
• Create, define, prioritize, fund, execute and track actions
• Track and report status: weekly for team member, monthly to Strategy Team and Quarterly health check for
Steering Committee
• Identify platform improvement suggestions to raise to Strategy Team
Responsibilities
SP13 Governance – Operations & Support Team

13. The Governance Document
• Prepared with Microsoft
Professional Services
• 36 pages
• From storage quotas, to site
templates, to permission
management, to SQL
operations, to branding….

14. SP13 Migration – Governance in Practice
Legal, Corporate & Compliance Group (600+
employees)
– 6 SP2007 Portals consolidated onto 1 SP13 Portal
– 60 old SP2007 team sites deleted / consolidated
– 80 (ish) SP2007 team sites being migrated to on
premise SP2013 OR Office365 SP Online

16. Governance in Action
Snippet from an InfoGraphic
created by my team to show
some of the very varied work
undertaken in 2016,
Including approx. 70 SP team
sites deleted or consolidated as
part of SharePoint migration.

17. Old versus New

18. BMO Central and LCCG Enterprise Intranet

19. SP Social Communities & Yammer

20. Summary & Questions
• Is this a useful model ?
• Would this governance structure fit
in your workplace ?
• What might you do differently ?

21. http://community.aiim.org/firstcanadianchapter/home
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gpcawthorne/
http://www.cmswire.com/author/jed-cawthorne/
@jedpc
Or if you want to follow the exploits of my Historical alter-ego
https://www.facebook.com/WilliamOfHedon